


Malta Bright

by pennypaperbrain



Series: Four Corners of the Western World [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Dom!John, Figging, M/M, Mania, Mental Health Issues, Post-Reichenbach, Romance, Sherlock dancing to Rihanna, Whipping, sub!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-24
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-14 23:01:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennypaperbrain/pseuds/pennypaperbrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four months after his best friend and unrequited crush apparently committed suicide in front of him, John’s life has been turned upside down again by a voicemail from Sherlock in the US, saying he is covertly tracking down the remains of Moriarty’s network, and asking John to join him.<br/>Two days on, John is on his way to meet Sherlock in Malta. Everything seems to have changed between them: not only is Sherlock being overtly affectionate in his texts, but he quite explicitly wants sex. But there’s just one problem (apart from the small matter of the international assassins etc): Sherlock’s behaviour is getting steadily stranger, even by his standards. John starts to worry his friend may be on drugs again…</p><p>(Podfic available! See the 'works inspired by this one' link below.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Now with [setlock](http://pennypaperbrain.tumblr.com/post/130413939476/four-corners-of-the-western-world-malta-bright) images.

**John**

John pokes half-heartedly at his Air Malta in-flight meal before giving up and staring out of the window at the Mediterranean Sea far below. What soldier worth his salt turns his nose up at food? Well, John apparently, when he’s this keyed up. He’d laugh at himself, if it wasn’t for the butterflies in his stomach. And his chest. All through him, in fact.

Two days and five hours ago he got Sherlock’s garbled message. Since then he’s been incredulous, he’s been worried, he’s been incandescently angry, and all those feelings are still banging around inside him now. He left at least a dozen voicemails and text messages, in moods ranging from ecstatic relief to desperate rage at whoever was playing this shitty trick… until a day and a half later Sherlock called again, from Malta, saying he’d got the messages but only vaguely remembered calling John from Vegas. That must be down to heat exhaustion from the desert, and the shock of killing Graf, he said, but now he’d had a good long sleep and felt much better. He explained everything that had happened since he jumped off the roof of Barts. A rubber ball in the armpit. A lorry full of binbags for a soft landing. Help from Molly.

In rational terms, the story of Sherlock’s flight and wanderings has established itself in John’s head. Emotionally though, John’s in shock, and he knows it. His feelings are lying around the floor of his head, disconnected from his thoughts. There’s even a part of him that’s still grieving, because you can’t just halt a process like that. Nor can he work out what to think about the rambling phone call. One explanation that does occur is drugs, but he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.

There’s one thing John is sure about, and that’s what’s happening in his pants. _I love you_ , Sherlock had said in his first message, and John managed to get in a certain amount of wondering whether the words were meant in some platonic way that made sense only if you were a mad genius with a tobacco ash fixation… until he got a text which said ‘My safeword is “magnesium”. I find it diverting to be used by someone with sufficient imagination. Tie me up. Force me. Fuck me (up).’ John stared at that message and wanked himself to a shouting climax in the 221b living room. 

Whatever else he’s going to have to face up to, it feels so good to feel good. He’d forgotten. Christ, he had actually forgotten – again.

His life is in a mess. In fact, his life is the thing he’s just dumped in order to charge off to a foreign country and kill people for the sake of a legally deceased fugitive. But he knows himself well enough not to be very surprised that he doesn’t much care.

The pilot announces their imminent landing and the plane begins its descent. Now the time is coming close, all John can think about is seeing Sherlock again, touching him, making absolutely sure he’s real. He can’t quite think beyond that. 

Things between them will have changed, there are gaps and broken edges and John’s half-stunned feelings, but they’ll find out how to fix it somehow. They’ll start again. John will be with Sherlock. Sherlock will be with John.

 

**Sherlock**

Sherlock is back in business, striding through the uneven, stone-walled, stone-paved streets of ancient Valletta, cataloguing and deducing in a downpour which has the tourists running for cover and the locals keeping indoors. For him the drenching is irrelevant, except in as far as it makes details harder to spot. The violence of the storms here, and their swift alternation with balmy sunny spells even in November – he is, after all, further south than parts of Africa – even pleases him. He is surrounded by a new world of information to filter and file. 

In Vegas he… overstretched himself. All the way to the airport in Salt Lake City, and through the three flights necessary to reach Malta, he was overtired. He recalls speaking at length and indiscreetly to people who pointedly did not speak back. When he arrived here he drugged himself with a calculated mixture of three over-the-counter remedies and slept for 10 hours and woke refreshed.

He is still tense though. This morning, leaning over the kitchen table in the tourist accommodation he has rented in the north of the city, memorizing a large-scale map of the island, the phrase _I feel great!_ and an accompanying meaningless thrill obtruded itself between him and the object of study so often that he grew angry and smashed a dish. Indiscipline.

Most likely he needs sexual contact. Tiresome, but the unmet biological imperative would explain his recent volatility. John will serve as auxiliary firepower – it was wise of Sherlock to summon him – and also in this other capacity. John showed a compatible inclination on the occasion of their previous experiment, which was limited by Sherlock’s then-state of distraction due to the several riddles presented by Miss Adler.

Sherlock experiences a vivid flash of himself, naked and spread-eagled on the double bed back at his rented accommodation. The sheet is smooth beneath him, and leaning over him is John. John. John’s eyes are alight and his hand is on Sherlock’s thigh, and the pleasure-pain…

Sherlock shakes his head violently to dispel the distraction, turning from a tiny alley into Republic Street. Three umbrella-carrying French tourists step back slightly, and eye him as he sweeps past. He is aware of drawing more attention than is commensurate with anonymity and thus safety. There is no reason for this except the idiocy of people who have nothing better to look at. Dull, dull, dull! But his anger is irrational. He catalogues the details of a plumber advertising in English – one of the national languages – on a passing van. 

John’s plane arrives this afternoon, and Sherlock will meet it. John has warned him that a public rendezvous is not safe, but then what is safe now? John is flying in on a commercial service because there was simply no other way for matters to be arranged. Mrs Hudson, Mike Stamford and others have been told of a ‘last-minute beach holiday’, which they believe to be the result of their advice. 

John, with his military skill, and also his mundane appearance, is a necessity for the task ahead. Heritage Valletta suits Sherlock as a base for his ‘tourist’ persona, but it is demonstrating little in the way of a criminal underworld, at least not that Sherlock can find, and he has a talent for these things. Tonight he and John will visit the rowdy bars of Malta’s nightlife centre, Paceville. Together they will hunt criminals again.

The exercise of Sherlock’s intellect has brought him to this point. Once John is here to do the spadework they will be unstoppable.

No fear can touch him. John is coming soon.

 

**John**

When John walks out of arrivals, clenching the straps of his single, practical, backpack in his fists, he knows Sherlock won’t be there, even though he said he would. John told him it was too risky, and in any case Sherlock will be busy performing acidity tests on the local bird shit or something.

Still, John’s stomach is performing contortions. Worse than his previous doubts, he suddenly knows with a leaden certainty that he must be insane to have come here at all. Sherlock is dead. He saw it happen. The last three days were the product of grief and delusion. What the hell has he done?

There is a man, tall and gaunt, in a flappy white t-shirt, with cropped ginger hair, approaching across the shiny floor. His face is lit up with a smile – and what a smile. Broad and welcoming and sunny and so alive.

Alive.

_Sherlock._

John tries to say something – God knows what – and he chokes on his closed-up throat. Sherlock covers the distance with a few more of his long strides and the first contact between them is Sherlock trying, not very successfully, to hold the backpack out of the way and thump John between the shoulderblades. 

‘Fuck,’ John coughs out. Then: ‘Hi.’

He’s been through countless mental rehearsals of this moment, and now that’s all he can say.  
They’re not stopping there, though. Sherlock takes John in his arms, and actually kisses him on the top of his head, as if he was a child. And John thinks, _right then, it’s started_ , just before Sherlock moves down and kisses him on the mouth. Soft lips, and a taste of oranges.

Every emotion John’s felt in the last four months is currently nuking his heart and brain; he doesn’t know which will win, and there is bile and anger that he needs to vent, but for now he’s kissing back, hard, local comment be damned. Sherlock is warm and responsive and John just enjoys that for a few seconds more before pulling away to hold Sherlock at arm’s length. 

Sherlock looks thinner than ever, and his eyes are tired and surrounded by fine lines, and at the same time he’s staring as if it’s Christmas and John’s his new toy. He’s buckling under the stress, John knows it – that incoherent message from the desert – but right now John is just so fucking _glad_ they’re both here and both alive that the feeling burns in his throat, as fiercely as the accompanying urge to punch Sherlock’s lights out in payment for four months of hell.

‘You… _bastard_ ,’ John says, sounding mostly bewildered to his own ears.

‘I am so pleased to see you,’ says Sherlock, and he sounds mostly amazed at himself. The glorious smile is still there.

John’s amazed as well, to be honest. Smiles, kisses – what has happened to his friend? The word swims up from the back of his mind again: _drugs_. 

In which case, it’s doubly good that he’s here. Substance abuse plus combat stress? He’s seen that before, all right. It may be the very last thing he wants to see again… except no, it isn’t. He saw the very last thing four months ago. This is easy by comparison. And anyway, he can’t be sure yet. Sherlock was never exactly stable even before all this.

‘Same,’ John says. It’s all he can manage. ‘Let’s go back to wherever we’re staying.’ They can continue this there. Whatever it is. 

‘Of course,’ agrees Sherlock. He snaps his fingers for no obvious reason, and laughs. ‘We’re staying in a medieval merchant’s house. You’ll think it’s picturesque.’ 

Sherlock turns on the ball of one foot and at the same time twists his head around so that their gazes stay locked, a strange movement that would be a contortion in anyone else but is somehow made graceful by Sherlock. John follows him as he starts for the exit; it’s taken barely twenty seconds for that old pattern to be re-established. John doesn’t care.

They sit in the back of a taxi, superficially ignoring each other as it takes them past low buildings of weathered beige stone with recessed balconies in an Arabic style that sparks half-submerged memories in John. He wants to take in the locality but he’s distracted by Sherlock beside him, tapping his foot incessantly and staring out of the window, no doubt mentally photographing the landscape. He’s radiating twitchy vitality, as if some setting that was always on high has been dialled up to maximum. John is scorchingly aware of his presence: the things that have changed (intriguing short ginger hair, a comically slobby t-shirt) and the things that never will (those cheekbones, which John remembers glistening with blood… except he will not think about that now.)

_Tie me up. Force me. Fuck me (up)._

Oh God, some things are good to think about, and John intends to act on them.

The cab drops them off in a small street in the north of the city, a slope of ancient flagstones between high buildings pocked irregularly with windows, and Sherlock leads the way to a small door, set deep in the stone wall, which he opens with a flourish to reveal steps climbing up into a pleasant living area now dominated by an extremely modern flat screen TV. Open-sided staircases lead up to the next floor and down to a cellar.

‘Nice,’ says John, looking around at the ancient, undressed stone walls with their recesses for lamps and occasional hangings. He dumps his backpack on the floor and flops on to the sofa. He’s done route marches through the desert before now, but air travel still somehow always wears him out. ‘Especially considering you’re dead and I’ve just abandoned my life,’ he adds, and thinks: _There_. He’s successfully made a casual reference to their lunatic situation. Go him.

Sherlock is fiddling minutely with the fake flowers in the vase by the TV. In anyone else that would be an awkward movement designed to cover up the fact that the two of them just kissed, they’re suddenly alone and they don’t know what to do about it. Maybe it is in Sherlock, too.

‘No sign of Zagami, then,’ John says. ‘I take it you’ve been detecting?’

Sherlock pulls a disgusted expression, but also comes to life. ‘Did you know this island had no murders _at all_ between 2003 and 2006? Were they all asleep?’ He paces to and fro in the small room and flings out his arms, nearly grazing his knuckles on the stone. ‘Even I can’t tap a network that doesn’t exist. Zagami’s probably having a siesta under a rock with his grandmother. I should have gone after Kolyvanov first, he’s the real player, I suspect.’

‘Well we’re in a country that’s smaller than London, so I’m betting the world’s only consulting detective can turn something up,’ says John. _This is good_ , he thinks, they’re talking about practical matters, which is probably safe. Not to mention vitally important. ‘The question is what we do about it. I wasn’t exactly able to come armed. Can you…’ John only hesitates a little: he might be talking to a civilian but hardly to an innocent. ‘Can you synthesize poison, if you get the right kit? That might be better, seeing as this is not exactly a legal kill. The police tend to notice blokes dropping dead of gunshot wounds quite quickly. Poison gives us time to get off the island.’

Sherlock waves a hand. ‘Oh, if need be I can. But that leaves too much to chance. Even with my level of skill there’s a fractional risk he might recover, or identify the substance ahead of time, then he’ll be on his guard. I really think you need to shoot him. If there’s trouble Mycroft can clear your name when it’s all sorted out and we’re back in London. Special forces mission et cetera.’

John massages his brow. Two minutes alone together, and he’s already remembered a good deal of what makes Sherlock so aggravating. Yes, John will shoot people to save Sherlock, they both know that, but he’s risking more than a fucking slapped wrist.

‘Sherlock, I am not 007,’ he says. ‘I’m a washed-up army grunt. You know I kept the damn SIG – not that it’s here, I wasn’t bringing that through customs – mostly because I thought I wanted to off myself. Seems I found something better to do, but I’m not an action hero.’

John leans back on the sofa. Maybe he’s laying it on a bit thick here, but he needs Sherlock to understand how they are going to do this, which, if he’s got anything to do with it, will be quietly and cleanly. From what Sherlock’s told him about tearing up Vegas, it’s a minor miracle that he got away with killing Graf.

But, of course, John might as well have saved his breath, because Sherlock clearly wasn’t listening.

‘Look, John, there’s a gun dealer down in Hal Qormi, and you need a licence in Malta, but I can see just from the website that the front of shop security’s a joke. If we go there late tonight...’

‘Sherlock!’ John interrupts, standing up and raising his voice. ‘I would ask you to tell me you’re not proposing we knock over a gun shop, but fucking hell, you clearly are.’

‘Your alternative suggestion, then?’ Sherlock shoots back, glaring down his nose at John.

The sentence comes out so fast it’s almost a single word and Sherlock’s practically vibrating on the spot, his slender fingers slipping repeatedly off the top of the ridiculous TV and twitching their way back. Half of John’s mind is watching them and thinking: _shit_. Another part is entranced. The remainder is just fucking angry. This guy is, always has been, just too much.

OK. Time out. 

‘I am going for a shower,’ John announces, scooping his washbag out of the top pocket of his backpack. He has to get out of here, just for a while. ‘Where’s the plumbing in this place, all in the cellar? Right. Back in fifteen. We can talk sensibly then.’

John marches off down the stone steps. He certainly does need a shower. He also needs to calm down, think about the question of whether and how to obtain firearms, shut up the part of his mind that’s going ‘Sex! Now! _Sex_!’ and work out what the hell he’s going to do about his flatmate (co-conspirator? fellow fugitive??) being back on bloody coke.

 

**Sherlock**

Sherlock paces around the tiny living area. Everything here is small; the room, Valletta, the island, the trifling challenge of finding one man. Yet he hasn’t done it. This place is more foreign than Vegas, and he doesn’t know its ways. When he finds Zagami, he’ll have to kill again, and he doesn’t want to do that. That’s why he has John. Is John glad to be here? Possibly not. It shouldn’t matter. Apparently it does. John is giving him curious looks.

If there is something wrong, if his mind – _his_ mind! – previously slipped a notch under pressure, then now he is reasserting control. He has felt transcendent, glorious, and that energy is still with him, albeit black and wild now, ever fiercer. Tar-thick, choking, a simultaneous electric intensity beyond the heights of cocaine and still building. It is a joy to see John again. Sherlock kissed him, they remade the world, but still the pressure in his head is winding tighter. He will crack – no. He will _think_. If for some reason his intellectual self-control failed in Vegas, then he has it back now.

This ancient chamber bears the traces of a hundred lives, so Sherlock scans the walls, putting himself through the trifling exercise of reading the crises and mundanities scarred into the stone. That done, and his point proven, his mind is a little quieter. Whatever is happening to him, be it delayed shock or a petty stress reaction, it is not all-consuming.

He hoists John’s backpack onto the sofa and rifles through it. He needs John, for more than just loaded glances. John will hold him, John will hurt him and distract him and yes, Sherlock wants to be good for John too. The last four months were clearly not enjoyable for his friend. That was partially Sherlock’s doing.

What he finds in the backpack gratifies him beyond expectations: a familiar set of four leather cuffs with their accompanying padlocks. John’s choice to bring Sherlock’s own kit is rather sentimental, but Sherlock is not currently inclined to ridicule. He divests himself of the ridiculous t-shirt and baggy trousers and throws them behind the TV. Stripping entirely would drive the point further but he decides this might be too much for John, who likes to pretend conventionality as a prelude to doing what he wants.

When John comes plodding barefoot up the stairs, wrapped tightly in a towel and staring ahead with a vacuous expression, he finds Sherlock standing in the middle of the living room, the bundle of leather and locks in one outstretched hand. 

John freezes. His eyes go from Sherlock to the cuffs and back.

‘OK…’ he says.

Sherlock considers the syllable. Its content was neutral, but the tone not as enthusiastic as he requires.

‘I found them in your bag,’ he says, putting everything he has into sounding reasonable, nice, civil, even fucking flirtatious, damn it. If John doesn’t do this for him, Sherlock will shatter with need. Doesn’t John _see_?

‘Evidently,’ says John, nodding. ‘Well, I suppose I went through your room to find them in the first place, so technically we’re even. But have you forgotten that we’re on the run from professional killers and we should probably be discussing what we do about it?’ He shakes his head. ‘Magnesium, Sherlock. How much coke are you doing?’


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock Holmes is naked and waiting to get his arse whipped, and when did John die and go to heaven?

**Sherlock**

Sherlock blinks. There is anger in John’s voice, and perhaps that would be worth examination… but not now; not while he needs relief. As for the risible diversion onto the topic of drugs, how could anyone be so oblivious?

‘ _Cocaine?_ ’ Sherlock demands, dropping the bundle of leather onto the sofa and leaning forward. He’s too angry to be placatory now. ‘You think I want sex with you because I’m high?’ 

John doesn’t back off, just nods with that square-jawed expression he gets when he thinks he’s being moral. ‘I’d like to believe that’s not the only reason, but I’m guessing it’s one. Are you going to tell me I’m wrong?’

‘The entire concept is ludicrous! Oh very well, Doctor Watson. I’m not even using nicotine patches. No time, on this case! I’m the cleanest I’ve ever been. Are you satisfied now, or would you like to run a blood test?’ 

Sherlock holds out his wrist. And, for Christ’s sake, his arm is shaking. His fist won’t unclench. Perhaps John will see that; perhaps John can… There is a burning in Sherlock’s skull, through each of his limbs. He records these observations: the sense of crushing, of asphyxiation, the world shrinking in on his heated brain. Is this because John won’t play? Sherlock is desperate for release. No, he’s not desperate: unlike in Vegas he’s still recording. While he records, there is control. He is control. He pushes these things down.

‘You have a substantial erection,’ Sherlock observes killingly, pointing with his other hand at the lift in John’s towel.

John doesn’t let himself be distracted. He just shifts his towel to hide the bulge and says tightly, ‘You of all people know that the mind isn’t enslaved to the body.’ He’s examining Sherlock for track marks, and the slow, meticulous quality of his observation is blackly, insultingly hilarious because Sherlock is on fire, and John cannot see.

‘Tie me up and hurt me!’ Sherlock demands. ‘You’ll find extra rope in the drawer under the television. I have few hard limits, and we have already discussed them via text. It will be two hours until we can usefully begin the evening’s business and even I can think of no preferable occupation.’

John finally looks up; and the look is a glare. ‘Oh well, that decides everything, then, doesn’t it?’ he says. ‘Never mind _my_ feelings. Never mind the fact that I might need just a little more than five minutes to get over four months of thinking you’d committed suicide in front of me!’

Sherlock stares back. He is aware that sometimes he is himself to excess, and that this self is considered too much for any normal person to tolerate. He has never charted quite what defines those times, but this is one of them. He knows that, and he doesn’t want to add to the pain he has caused to John.

He also _needs_.

‘Please, John,’ he begs. ‘I understand you’re angry, but don’t you want this?’ 

The fact that John does want this is etched all over him. But he stares at Sherlock, just stares.

Then John says, heavily: ‘What if I do?’

Sherlock drops to his knees. His whole being is _please… please please please_.

 

**John**

To be quite so intensely wanted is a compelling experience.

Nobody is actually shooting through the windows yet so it should be OK to take an hour out and do this, John tells himself. His gut feeling is that Sherlock is telling the truth about being clean of drugs - Sherlock wouldn't lie about something which is, in his estimation at least, so insignificant. With this in mind his behaviour points to some form of combat stress, and that’s a condition John understands. Giving the man a means of letting off steam is medically justifiable.

The fact that John is also bloody furious and wants to hit someone is… iffy. He’ll have to keep that well under control if he’s going to top responsibly, which he is. Fury can be ridden, after all.

Sherlock is kneeling there almost naked and utterly focused on John. He looks needy, _Sherlock_ looks openly needy, and it’s been a while since John had someone that way, but he hasn’t forgotten. He feels the shift into headspace, the urge to protect while razing to the ground. Doctoring and soldiering purified and combined. _I’m not gay_ , he’s always protested, but he’s never found what he truly wants in vanilla affairs with women.

The feeling he has now is one he’s known twice before in his life, once for a man who wanted him and once for a woman who didn’t. It was never as strong as now. He wants this so much, all of it, to touch Sherlock, to hurt him, to make it all impossibly better. If that kind of medicine isn’t in the textbooks then he’ll add a bloody appendix.

He throws the towel aside at the same time as instructing: ‘Stand up. I want you completely naked, with your wrists at the small of your back.’ 

It’s a thrill, watching Sherlock scramble to obey. John cuffs and padlocks his arms behind him, then pushes him a few steps backwards until he hits the rough stone wall. There’s a little _oof_ of expelled breath from Sherlock, then their faces are very close together, because Sherlock’s bending his head down to John, clearly expecting a kiss.

John’s not going to be that predictable. Running options through his mind, he raises a hand and clamps it firmly over Sherlock’s mouth, pressing his head back against the wall. Sherlock won’t outthink him in this, won’t be able to duck out and leave him hanging. John makes the rules.

‘I know your safeword,’ he says. ‘But if you can’t speak and you need me to stop, grunt three times. Can you do that now?’

Sherlock does, standing utterly still. Above the weathered slab of John’s hand his eyes are aglow. Their expression is unmistakable – lust – and fuck, it’s gorgeous. This is what John has dreamt of, hopelessly, unbearably, and now he has it… and he clamps down more firmly before moving his thumb and forefinger to pinch shut Sherlock’s nose. John’s other hand wraps around his hip, digging in nails.

Sherlock makes a noise deep in his chest. He wriggles a little, testing more than fighting, and John pins his legs against the wall with a knee. The thrill of what he’s doing, hurting Sherlock and controlling him ( _finally_ ), wells up in John’s groin, an electric sweetness that wrings a shudder out of him. He rakes his nails hard down Sherlock’s thigh, relishing the wince that passes through it. Sadism: a part of himself that John usually keeps hidden. But Sherlock wants it. Sherlock needs John. Everything they had together comes back to him. And now they have more.

‘I want you to suffer,’ growls John. It comes out slurred, almost a single word. Their eyes lock together again, and in the same moment John realises, very clearly, that he is not entirely on top of his anger after all, and also that there is no way back. He doesn’t want a way back, and Sherlock doesn’t either, and oh God this is hot hot wrong right hot.

Very carefully, John counts seconds. Around the thirty mark, he lets go. Sherlock takes a shuddering breath, then says rather croakily, ‘Interesting.’

John seizes Sherlock by the hair, and tugs. Sherlock’s head comes down a little, then he resists being dragged forwards, so that John pulls harder, and twists, and he sees Sherlock’s face from the side, contorted and awkward and breathing hard, eyes rolling towards John. Sherlock is in pain, and John can see it, John is master of it, and when a whimper escapes from Sherlock John just wraps his free hand around Sherlock’s balls and says ‘Come with me now or I will _really_ hurt you.’ At that, Sherlock allows himself to be led out into the room then shoved onto his knees with his face crushed into the leather seat of the sofa. John grabs the ankle cuffs, locks them in place and together, and Sherlock cranes round to briefly catch his eye, and they both know, they are both spiralling up on the knowledge, that John can do anything he wants.

He says: ‘I’m going to beat the living shit out of you.’

‘Hmm,’ is Sherlock’s muffled response.

John takes stock for a moment. Unlike at Baker Street, there’s no riding crop to hand. But what he does have with him is a belt. He’s used one before, and it’s rough and ready. Right now, that only makes the idea more appealing. 

‘Stay put,’ says John, and heads downstairs. His belt will be sitting by the shower with the rest of his clothes, plus it also seems like a good idea to spend half a minute in a room that doesn’t have Sherlock in it. Yes, hitting someone with a belt has overtones of punishment. No that doesn’t mean John will get carried away.

He stands in the cool cellar and takes deep breaths. He is in control, of himself and of Sherlock. He is choosing to do this scene, and he can if necessary at any point, backpedal. This being the case, he climbs the stairs slowly, belt in hand, and halts a few steps from the top, watching Sherlock.

Sherlock’s face is level with John’s as he kneels with his head on the sofa and his bound wrists resting on his jutting arse. Outside of a case, John has never seen such a piercing expression in his eyes. It’s expectant, challenging, intense… and, unlike his detective face, desperate.

He reaches the top of the stairs and crosses to Sherlock’s kneeling body. He has a brief urge to say something reassuring, but that wouldn’t fit right now. Instead he just runs first his hand and then the smooth side of the belt down the pale ridge of Sherlock’s spine and across the swell of his buttocks. The anger is still in him, and it sparks up as he presses his hand against Sherlock’s back. Sherlock is _real_. That is a miracle, and also outrageous. John suffered so much in vain. Does Sherlock begin to realise?

‘You really do have beautiful skin,’ says John aloud. ‘I’m going to completely fuck that up.’

Sherlock just grunts, as if they were in discussion and he were grudgingly conceding a point.  
John smiles grimly to himself as he takes Sherlock’s bound hands and pushes them firmly up to the small of his back. Sherlock gets the message and leaves them there.

John lands a first hit on his arse, carefully keeping it light.

‘Is that the best you can do?’ says Sherlock sniffily.

John is not to be riled. ‘You know perfectly well that was just a starter.’

He whips Sherlock again, a little harder. And again – harder – and again.

 

**Sherlock**

Sherlock is helpless and in pain. It’s enraging and shocking and humiliating and hopelessly, filthily, arousing. He is presenting his arse to John, and John is beating him, not with perfect skill – a belt is difficult to accurately wield, as John drily assures him, and it wraps around Sherlock’s hip or falls awkwardly on occasion – but with audible relish. John is getting off on making him suffer. John’s breathing deepens, perhaps with exertion and perhaps with pleasure at Sherlock’s pain, and Sherlock… Sherlock is starting to groan and whimper as lines of fire slice into his arse and the tops of his thighs.

He wanted this. He wants this. It is a cleansing. It is comfort. It fucking hurts. 

It _hurts_. Instinctively Sherlock tries to get to his bound feet, to get away, but immediately, John is on to him, shoving him back down before delivering another, harder, blow. When Sherlock bucks again, John finds the coil of rope Sherlock bought yesterday and tethers his neck tightly to his ankles, giving little quarter beyond that necessary to avoid strangulation. He undoes Sherlock’s wrists and drags them round in front of him to be locked between his ankles as well. There is a tense anger in all John’s movements, barely held in check by his habitual care. Sherlock feels it, through the belt and through the touch of skin on skin. It belongs. He has wounded John; he understands that, and can’t undo it by himself.

Sherlock can only kneel with his face pressing into the edge of the sofa, hands caught between his feet, feeling his cheeks flush with heat and awkwardness. He can’t see over his shoulder very well, but John’s chest and head are within his peripheral vision.

‘You’re staying there,’ says John, and the cruelty in his voice is a new and wonderful part of him. ‘I want to see just how much this hurts you.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock sees John’s arm go up... and a vicious blow cuts right across the sorest part of Sherlock’s backside. He lets out a moan of anguish, and squirms, and his eyes squeeze closed and he’s shut inside his flesh with the pain, but also with the feeling of peace that rises out of nowhere because there is nowhere – nowhere to go. He has known months of anger and fervour and will and chaos, and all that is in him now, but he is also a body, and the body suffers; the body suffers and his mind is in neutral, riding the pain as by biochemical alchemy he starts to drift a little and the whipping continues travelling up his back and down again to his buttocks, unmooring him, connecting him to John, and always it _hurts_. 

John’s hand is on him sometimes, stroking the welts, reaching around Sherlock’s crotch to fondle his cock with possessive assurance, but it’s never long before the beating starts again. Over a hundred strokes perhaps in total, sometimes restrained, more often harsh, but Sherlock has lost count and does not care. He is in pain. He’s helpless. John.

‘All right,’ says John at last, and he loosens the rope tether that keeps Sherlock’s head down and his hands between his feet, just a little. Then John comes around, sits on the sofa with his legs splayed on either side of Sherlock and says, ‘Your turn. Suck me off.’

Sherlock blinks. He’s being expected to do something, and it takes a moment to pull himself a little way out of the depths. The skin of his back and arse feels like a sheet of flame.

‘Deduce how I like it,’ instructs John, with sarcastic emphasis on the first verb.

Sherlock nods. To gain time he nuzzles his nose into the blonde curls that are presented to him, inhaling the scent of shower gel and new sweat. Then he nips very gently at John’s balls. 

That gets surprisingly little response, so Sherlock moves to firmly lapping the underside of John’s half-mast cock. The deep groan this produces would make Sherlock smile, if his mouth wasn’t occupied, so he spends some time working on the glans with the same kind of steady pressure, probing his tongue into John’s slit, working pre-come and saliva around his cockhead and down the sides of the shaft.

‘Getting warmer,’ murmurs John, lifting himself from his sprawled position a little. ‘God, we’re a fine pair of perverts. I can see down your back, and the welts are coming up. You let me do all that to do you and you enjoyed it.’

Sherlock grunts in response, his mouth busy. He wasn’t aware of having a verbal humiliation kink, but the word _pervert_ , coming from John and applied to both of them, lights a glow deep inside him. Sherlock is tied up and sore and sucking the cock of a man who got hard from beating him, and so very seldom does anyone meet him as equal in any undertaking that the simple knowledge of their situation is a profound pleasure. What John needs Sherlock to be, he is.

Sherlock takes John’s whole shaft into his mouth and slides his lips downwards, then quickly back up. He establishes a rhythm that is alternately uneven and sure, and the variance of it seems to bring John’s whole body to life, bucking and swaying. He fists a hand in Sherlock’s hair and mutters obscenities, and Sherlock is high both on pain and success now, switching from deep-throating to sensual licking of the glans, then back to a vigorous rhythm that John assists with his gripping hand so that Sherlock is blissfully, brutally pinned between the fist and the now rock-hard erection plunging into his throat. 

‘ _Fuck_ , Sherlock,’ John groans, and he’s tensing up, getting close to orgasm. Sherlock increases the pressure of his tongue… and finds his head yanked back and upwards by the hair. For a frozen moment, he is staring up into John’s flushed and ecstatic face. Then pressure explodes against Sherlock’s cheekbone. Everything blurs, and he rocks sideways, and as he is fighting to regroup he knows that John has slapped him, _John has slapped him_ , and it’s humiliating and utterly singular, but Sherlock refocuses, in time to see John tugging on his own cock with the hand that isn’t twined in Sherlock’s hair. John’s eyes are hungry and ecstatic and intent as his body jerks; he comes with a drawn-out cry right into Sherlock’s face.

John lets go, so that Sherlock’s head falls forward against John’s thigh. 

Sherlock hears himself whimper; he feels used and dazed and filthy, and he’s achingly hard, with his hands tied between his feet so that the frustrating best he can do is prod his balls with his thumbs. He rubs his face into John’s thighs, smearing ejaculate, still seeing against his closed eyelids the image of John’s face transformed, drinking in Sherlock’s pain and shock. At the thought of that, he strains again to reach his own erection… but he is interrupted. John lifts him, gently now, by the shoulders, and lowers him to the floor on his side. 

Sherlock goes limp, and stares at the base of the sofa, inches from his nose. There are no doubt histories etched into it but they go undeduced, because Sherlock is curled up on the rug, still bound, with John’s warmth pressed against his raw back. John’s arm reaches around and in to grasp and stroke and chafe Sherlock finally to orgasm, a cry on his lips and John’s teeth buried in his neck.

 

**John**

They are slightly awkward as they disentangle themselves. It wasn’t a long or complicated scene, but they went deep, and they both know it, and John for one isn’t quite sure how to come back, or even where to come back to.

He was angry. He struck Sherlock out of anger as well as desire. Some savage, bereft part of him shared control with his conscious mind as Sherlock struggled and John grabbed him and forced him down and beat him harder. That seems less than good, but it’s what happened, and now John does feel easier in himself. As if the majority of him is now fully present here, in Malta, while only a fragment is left churning through the past.

As he tidies the rope away he has the urge to apologise, which is definitely ridiculous. This has been one of the more confusing days of his life, but one thing proven for certain is that Sherlock is an enthusiastic masochist, and exploring that fact is mutually delightful. John remembers the look they exchanged when he covered Sherlock’s mouth with his hand, and the memory makes him smile.

He glances up at Sherlock then, because he knows that what will show in his eyes is what he wants to show, and not anything darker. 

Sherlock is standing in the middle of the floor, still naked and liberally smeared with semen, stretching in a way that is obviously designed to test the soreness of his back. He grins back at John in a way that on anyone else in the world would have to be described as goofy.

‘You take a shower,’ John instructs, feeling a pang of fondness. Sherlock may be exasperating, but the alternative – well, John has already had more than enough of the alternative. 

Sherlock practically scampers downstairs, leaving John to reflect that he’s probably used up his Sherlockian co-operation budget for the next month before following at a more sedate speed. He ends up in the kitchen area, where he remembers seeing proper food, presumably bought as a major concession to his arrival. He washes his hands before starting to make sandwiches and tea.

Sherlock showers quickly, then comes up, wet and naked, behind John. He turns John around, and they kiss. It’s slow, and relaxed, as if Sherlock as well as John is more present in his body after their scene. They can do this now, John realises: just kiss, and explore each other with their hands, when and however they want.

‘Is your back OK?’ John asks eventually. ‘And your arse? I broke the skin a bit.’

‘It all hurts,’ says Sherlock, entirely complacently. But he lets John turn him around, and make him wait while he fetches ointment from his backpack and then starts dabbing the welts with it.

‘Good,’ says John, once he’s satisfied that none of the damage requires more serious attention. He decides it’s the sensible time to press home a point, even if he isn’t feeling entirely balanced himself at the moment. ‘And your mind?’

Sherlock stiffens, but doesn’t move away from the dabbing fingers. ‘Explain.’

‘You say you’re not on drugs, and I believe you. And you obviously needed release, and I don’t regret helping you out with that one. But,’ – here goes – ‘Does hyper-arousal ring any bells? Difficulty concentrating, wound up, can’t sleep, get angry at nothing, rush impulsively into things to avoid talking about the actual problem?’ John stops rubbing Sherlock’s welted back to wrap a hand lightly around his upper arm. ‘Can’t really remember the moment you killed Graf or what happened right afterwards? Like making a phone call that scared the shit out of me, for example?’

Sherlock’s gone very still. Then he pulls his arm out of John’s grasp, but only so that he can turn around and stare with an expression that’s both defensive and unexpectedly needy. John, who had braced himself for a burst of indignation, is surprised, but he goes with what he’s given and smiles, trying not to make the expression too doctorish.

‘You think I’m experiencing post-traumatic stress,’ Sherlock says. ‘A simple reaction.’

‘Well, not so simple, but a reaction, yes,’ says John. ‘I’d prescribe you a sedative, except it seems we’re fresh out of NHS pharmacies.’

Sherlock shakes his head. ‘No pills. You said yourself I don’t need drugs.’

‘You know that’s not what I meant,’ says John firmly, although he’s encountering a lot less resistance than he anticipated. He’d expected a lecture on how Sherlock’s superior mind was invulnerable. But nobody walks away from their first kill unaffected; John knows that.

‘God knows I didn’t want the pills either,’ he continues. ‘But I needed them. Still, it’s true medication isn’t always the right approach. Some guys just push through the worst of it with help from mates, and you’ve got one of those.’

John watches Sherlock carefully for a reaction. He gets a nearly invisible nod, which probably counts as gracious acceptance from his… well, never mind _mate_ , the word at this stage would appear to be _lover_. 

He lets the word sink into him and drive away his doubts.

‘Right,’ says John, capping his tube of ointment and tapping it on the kitchen counter. ‘That’s you patched up.’ And if the patching is only skin-deep, then it’s all he can manage until Sherlock is ready to talk to him properly. ‘So now I’m going to shower, we’re both going to eat, yes you as well as me, and then we’re going out. I can’t really condone this, but we’re going to rob a farmer.’


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now Sherlock and John are over the immediate shock of their reunion, it’s down to business. They need weapons and information, and they head out to find them.

**John**

John has cased farms for weapons before. It’s just that he tended to have a gun of his own to hand, and the farms tended to be abandoned ones, in actual warzones, not the southern European version of Ambridge. He keeps expecting a wrinkly old guy in a floppy hat to come hobbling out of an outbuilding and shout whatever’s Maltese for ‘Get orf moi laaaand!’ And then shoot them.

Sherlock, of course, looks to be having a great time. He agreed to the farm plan immediately, they rented a car, and now here they are in the dark, sneaking around the back of some kind of stone barn effort in the Maltese equivalent to the middle of nowhere, which is probably not actually very remote as the island is so small.

‘Farmer Giuseppe obviously keeps the shotguns in here,’ asserts Sherlock in a swift undertone. ‘Did you see the holes in that sack?’ He flips on his torch and shines it onto the sack in question, presumably to assist John’s feeble understanding.

‘Turn off the bloody light!’ mutters John. ‘Yeah, I see.’ He doesn’t, of course. He doesn’t need to as long as Sherlock’s right. How strange to have that feeling again. 

Sherlock is still acting like he’s high. Pure Sherlockian relish, turned up to eleven and apparently uninhibited by the crop of bruises John knows must be coming up under his t-shirt. John’s never seen combat stress make anyone this _perky_ , so he has to assume it’s the effect of what they did together, which is pretty flattering, not to mention arousing all over again. 

Now Sherlock’s practically levitating up the side of a barn where they’ve located a small, high, open window. He waves his skinny, tight-jeaned arse in the air, wriggling through, and John has a slightly hysterical impulse to deliver a quick slap, but then Sherlock’s all the way inside, rummaging far too audibly and flashing his bloody torch around so that John is torn between nervously eyeing the all-too-nearby farmhouse and putting his mouth up to the window to hiss a warning to keep it down.

Sherlock practically shouts ‘Ah-ha! A locked cabinet. How quaint. A burglar with no hands might be daunted.’ 

A minute or so later, a couple of shotguns come flying out of the window, and John just manages to catch them, then Sherlock is letting himself lightly down to the floor, with a bag of cartridges clutched in one hand.

‘These were hidden, or Farmer Giuseppe thought they were,’ he says, hefting the bag. ‘Interesting. Are the guns adequate?’ 

John is not going to be hurried. He hasn’t handled a gun since he meditatively picked up his own four months ago, only to decide that his own suicide would be an absolutely shit legacy for Sherlock and put the SIG away again. Now the feel of a weapon both brings back a range of memories and sets his focus powerfully on the task in hand. 

The guns turn out to be of good European make, one .410 bore – definitely on the small side, so Sherlock can have it – and one 12 gauge, a grippy matte synthetic stock with a rifled barrel. Now that is more like it, providing John isn’t too much of a shortarse to handle the thing. He shoulders it to be sure the stock fits his body; it’s tight but he’ll manage.

So they’re sorted for guns. Next John investigates the ammunition bag and finds that they really are in business. Along with regular ammo, the 12 gauge comes with a dozen or so sabot slugs, which is typical Sherlock luck. He’s grinning, as usual, like he knows. Which he probably does.

‘Definitely adequate,’ confirms John. ‘And sabot slugs are illegal so I don’t think the farmer will be reporting the theft. With these things, I can shoot from much further off and still be confident...’ He doesn’t add _of killing_. ‘We’ll need to find a way to get these sawn off that doesn’t involve us buying a saw and file. Tourists doing that is going to look suspicious.’

Sherlock nods in response, and immediately takes to his heels. John has to follow, as quietly as he can, across the starlit fields back to their rental car.

Sherlock’s doing the driving tonight, determined as usual to control everything. Consequently, on the short journey back to the main conurbation of which Valletta and Paceville are both part, John just tries not to be too obvious about the fact that he’s watching Sherlock. It’s futile, of course, and Sherlock is practically vibrating with satisfaction.

John deliberately looks out of the window at the dark shapes going by: houses, trees, and row on row of the paddle-leaved cacti that crown or replace field walls here. It’s peaceful. As Sherlock would say, dull.

He needs to focus. They both need to. The events of the afternoon won’t go away, but nor can they be allowed to get in the way of the reason they are here in the first place. And that probably means he has to say something, because he knows from past experience that just assuming Sherlock is on the same page as him is a recipe for disaster.

‘You know I keep thinking about beating your arse,’ John says. Oh yes, Sherlock’s red, sore arse, which must currently… OK, enough of that. ‘But we’ve got serious business out here.’ He needs to be sure that the lunatic beside him gets that.

One of Sherlock’s ‘save me from mere humanity!’ expressions appears, visible on his pale face even in the half-light. ‘You believe that sexual contact will weaken the practical aspects of our relationship,’ he observes. ‘Are there any rational grounds for this?’ 

John is half-angry and half-resigned. The dismissive tone is no more than he’d expect from Sherlock, but... ‘I _believe_ that quite a lot of things have happened quite fast and we need to keep track of what’s most important,’ he says. ‘It’s just possible that you committing suicide in front of me then coming back from the dead hasn’t been entirely sanity-enhancing for either of us. We’re not going to sort all that out in one go, but we in the meantime we need to work together.’

Sherlock is silent, seeming focused on the road. Every emotion from the past four months is suddenly in the car with them, thickening the air. John has the feeling that he’s gone too far, that he has to turn this around, quickly.

‘I’m really glad you phoned me,’ he says, staring out at endless cacti.

‘I believe it was a rational choice,’ Sherlock replies. Then he turns on the radio, very loud, and tunes it to some classical music which John fails to recognise but which has Sherlock shouting abuse about sloppy bowing technique.

The car speeds on. In spite of himself, John is starting to believe that this, all of this between them, old and new, might somehow work. 

Half an hour later they’re in Paceville. As Sherlock promised, the place consists of bars. Bars and bars and hotels and bars, along a waterfront with a contrastingly peaceful view of Valetta opposite. There’s neon and blaring music and reeling drunks and acres of flesh and tourists and locals shouting in various languages. In a nutshell it’s Brighton-on-Med, John decides, except hotter and almost certainly less queer. He knows places like this, but mostly from times before he met Sherlock.

They’re here to scout for information, so it’s best to blend in, and that means chatting up girls. They go swaggering into a bar-restaurant, looking around like they’re on the prowl for excitement, and John catches a waitress’ eye… only for Sherlock to cut in front of him. John watches the megawatt smile do its work, backed up by the on-cue sparkling eyes, and the total change in body language that never ceases to be slightly disturbing. It makes him jealous, which is absurd, and he realises that he can’t work out if he’s jealous of Sherlock or the waitress, which is more absurd.

‘Hi, I’m looking for my friend Phil Zagami,’ says Sherlock in a perfect midwestern US accent. ‘I think he’s a regular here?’

‘I’ve never heard of him, sorry,’ says the waitress in the local accent, which sounds half-way between Jamaican and Israeli. Then she turns professional: ‘Do you want to order drinks?’ 

Sherlock does order drinks – from a different waitress, on whom he uses the same line. This time he’s luckier and gets given some information about locals’ hangouts. John stares for a bit, then decides that he will after all deal with the male gender, and goes up to a bunch of Maltese lads. By dint of drink-buying he gets them to offer advice on how one would, hypothetically, go about looking up a long-lost family member without wading through the slug-slow local bureaucratic processes. 

They repeat this performance, or something similar, at further noisy bars. John is boozing his way into people’s trust while Sherlock manages just to sip his drinks and, consummate liar that he is, simply acts plastered. It winds John up, to see Sherlock so convincingly having the time of his life while John himself is on edge and fighting to stay so through the haze of alcohol. He could also wish that Sherlock wasn’t being quite so open as to ask for Zagami by name, though it’s a bit late to object now. It’s as if Sherlock thinks he’s invulnerable.

It almost feels as if they could really be what they say they are, two guys staying in a fancy tourist pad and cruising the nightlife. In reality, there are guns in their car, Zagami and Kolyvanov are still out there, and Sherlock is still officially dead, and a dead criminal at that. Is Sherlock completely indifferent to it all?

In bar number four, John does manage to find out from a couple of local women that ‘this family called Zagami lived down the street from us Bugibba, horrible old grandad always shouted at everyone, I think there was kid called Phil,’ which is the best they’ve got yet. He also gets the one of the women’s phone numbers, which salves his ego a bit, even if he knows he can’t call. Over at a booth, Sherlock is leaning over a Freddie Mercury moustache-alike guy, and making no attempt to hide the honking great love bite that’s flared up on his neck. Ego boost number two: marks left by John can enhance even Sherlock’s considerable attractions. Yes, John’s feeling pretty good now. And definitely merry.

Outside again, he has to try not to stagger into drunks – other drunks – as they proceed up the crowded street. Sherlock eyes the arse on a passing woman, which seems overdoing it on the blending in front, as it’s not like they’re stopping her to get information.

‘You do remember you’re gay, right?’ John asks. 

He expects a withering but also reassuring put-down. Instead Sherlock makes a gesture that’s both flamboyant and dismissive, not to mention extremely camp. The massive smile has become a fixture, which must mean he’s had more to drink than John noticed, because Sherlock never smiles that way otherwise unless he’s manipulating someone. The thought makes John sad, in a maudlin way that he’s too pissed to censor.

‘Call me a Kinsey five and a half,’ says Sherlock. ‘Everyone looks good tonight. It’s better than cocaine, John. I wish for your sake you could think like me.’ 

He actually throws his head back and raises his arms to the soaring vista of tourist hotels, which is getting a bit blurry to John’s eyes. John processes the words, telling himself that what Sherlock just said was a compliment by his standards, then makes a nominal effort to keep up as Sherlock starts rattling off, at breakneck speed, the details of what he calls the ‘four promising leads’ uncovered this evening. To John’s addled understanding, they sound like dead ends.

‘Just one more bar then we’re calling it a night,’ he says. As operational manoeuvres go, this is one of the more enjoyable ones, but… ‘You’ve got to drive. And I can’t believe how out of practice at this I am. Time was when John “three continents” Watson…’ He loses track of what he’s saying.

The final bar is practically a disco. John turns around to go out again just a few seconds after they’ve entered, because they’re not going to be able to question anybody with the music this loud, but then he realised Sherlock has vanished. Perhaps he plans to deduce something from the way the Maltese dry hump.

Then John himself is drawn onto the strobing dancefloor. A woman grabs him by the waist, and his feet are moving on their own, and the alcohol in his brain is shifting from haze to high. He pulls away, moves deeper into the crowd which is lit red yellow white red yellow and the music thunders all around, a blare of generic farting synth with female lyrics high in the mix. Oh God, John knows this one. Chart R&B is not his thing but he could hardly fail to register a song that’s so blatantly about BDSM.

John realises that Sherlock is watching him over a group of other heads. White strobelight freezes and releases him a dozen times a second, and in the throes of that he is moving closer, and John _wants_ him.

There’s only a few feet between them now, a miraculously open space. Sherlock’s t-shirt is plastered against him, revealing contours that John explored earlier, and John reaches out for him – but Sherlock pulls back, then tugs the shirt over his head and throws it to the ground. He spins, in time with the music, looking ecstatic, drugged, transformed, more beautiful than ever. The long wheals on his back catch the light.

The singer shrieks on about her love of pleasure and pain, and John’s mind has gone to another place. He grabs Sherlock, pulls their bodies together and grinds cock against cock. Sherlock leans down, bringing them as far as possible on a level, and mouths along with the lyrics, his face filling the world.

Eyes are on them. John feels like a kid showing off, and at the same time he’s a grown man, and here is his gorgeous lover. The next time the stupid, glorious chorus comes he has his teeth in Sherlock’s neck and one hand is scraping nails along a line of raised flesh on Sherlock’s back while the other grips his arse. The vibrations in Sherlock’s throat tell John that he’s shouting the lyrics at the ceiling as if they’re revelation. Grief is leaving John’s body; he’s scoring it into Sherlock’s flesh and Sherlock is releasing it into the pulsing, sweltering music-air. 

They leave the dancefloor, and the disco, as the song dies away. Half the punters are watching them, and John recognises that this is really not ideal, but they’re laughing like they did that time in the downstairs hall at Baker Street, just after their first chase, and it’s worth it. Sherlock does a little pirouette – still without a t-shirt – as they head for the car, then starts on a high-speed rant about the negligibility of the Maltese police and the corresponding probability of their total success and departure by the weekend. 

On the way back, John tries to get his brain back on line, at least a little. He mentions that the best way to saw off the shotguns would be with a professional-grade pipe cutter, and before he knows it Sherlock has pulled up in a silent back alley and announced the presence of a plumber’s shop two streets away. Silently, half-disbelieving what his life has turned into, John jimmies the back door then sneaks around as un-clumsily as he can until he finds the kit he needs to first sever the barrels and then smooth off the result. Sherlock leans against the wall, sticks his hand blatantly down his trousers and watches with a rapt expression until John has finished and cleaned up.

They need to get out of here but damn it, even if John’s sober enough to have sawn off a couple of guns without injuring himself he’s still drunk enough to be here in the first place, so he goes up to Sherlock and leans his hands against the wall on either side of Sherlock’s head.

‘Is this your idea of a date?’ John inquires.

‘Could you improve on it?’ Sherlock parries.

‘Only by doing something really fucking filthy to you right this minute.’

None of the plumber’s tools actually end up inside Sherlock’s arse, but he does take four fingers before bucking his way to climax, pressed against the wall with his cock in John’s mouth. After that, Sherlock drives them home and they fall into bed together because there is only one bed and it’s a double, so that is very simple and it also means Sherlock must have planned… oh God, it takes John a few seconds in his knackered state but he works it out. John _loves_ Sherlock. He feels Sherlock kissing up his back then drops into soggy sleep to the sound of footsteps running downstairs, presumably to an experiment or research in the cellar.

The next day he wakes up with the sun in his face, and the sense of a body lying beside him. The air has the cool of a rainstorm, and there are sounds of people going about their business in the ancient street outside. John breathes in, wincing only a little at his hangover, and turns very carefully to Sherlock.

Sherlock is staring fixedly at some point that seems to coincide with John’s left armpit. He has his hands bunched up in front of his chest. When John says his name he slowly moves his head until their eyes meet, and mutters: ‘Don’t _bother_ , John. For God’s sake. Get out.’

John goes hot with shame. John goes cold with anger. John goes downstairs, dresses and leaves the house, because he does not fucking need this, he does not understand this… and for reasons that he cannot bear to think about he’s starting to be afraid.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is something wrong with Sherlock. John doesn’t know what yet, but he knows they have to face it before it destroys them both.

**Sherlock**

On and off, Sherlock sleeps. 

Mid-morning he wakes properly and sits straight up, feeling as if cobwebs are falling away inside his head. There is no reason to be lying around, so he jumps out of bed and calls for John on his way down to the cellar. John’s biology background will make his input useful for a theory Sherlock has developed concerning the effect of Maltese fauna distribution on the content of certain local mud types.

John however is not here. Probably because Sherlock told him to get out. In retrospect, that does not seem entirely helpful. But Sherlock needed to sleep. He remembers feeling utterly bleak and flat, recalling Graf’s death while trying to shut out everything. Exaggerated sensations possessed him. Again, he was overtired. Perhaps, with age, he is coming to require more sleep.

John will return in due course. And in the meantime, Sherlock opens his laptop to record the overnight dissolution rate of the compounds he has ranged in beakers on the kitchen counter.

The operation is extremely simple, and yet it causes him difficulty. Images so vivid as to arrest his motion mid-keystroke possess his mind. A large proportion are highly sexual and either replay yesterday’s programme or develop follow-ups. Others are apparently random – some unwanted, deletion-resistant memories from childhood – and then there is this morning’s brief, unpleasant encounter with John. Sherlock felt, then, almost too empty to move.

Now his energy could crack his skin and overflow the room, and at the same time he cannot concentrate. 

He realises he has actually confused one beaker with another.

A spike of rage surges up inside him, forcing him to push back from the table and start to pace the cellar room before he grabs the experiment and damages it, because _this is not him_. He does not behave like this. He is not like his mother. He does not make trivial errors. Above all, he is master of his own thoughts. Always, even during depressions, he has been able to utilise an override switch that brings the functional part of his mind to the fore to interact with the world, and this is not even depression, it is...

Ten seconds later, Sherlock realises that his thoughts have squirrelled off into a pleasant reverie about John cuffing him to his own bed at Baker Street. It is innocuous and sentimental. It is humiliating and deadly because _he cannot think_. Like in Vegas. Something was terribly wrong in Vegas; he thought it had passed. It hasn’t passed. Moment by moment he can remake himself as rational, but what if the moments will not cohere? _Think._

Sherlock registers that he is gripping handfuls of hair on both sides of his head as he paces. He acknowledges the thought _I am going insane_ and holds it inside him, not endorsing it, not rejecting it. Clearly it is untrue because he is thinking perfectly clearly, right now. Clearly it is true because the direction, tone and structure of his thought is beyond his control.

He is grateful John is not here to see this. He wishes John were here to treat it. Sherlock will not take pills, will not let his mind be blunted, but nor is this tolerable and there must be some recourse before he shatters. Does he simply need rest?

Yes, maybe that is still true. After ten minutes’ pacing, he finds he has calmed himself a little. There is no point in panicking; he simply needs a change of activity. He sits at the kitchen table making phone calls that follow up on last night’s information-gathering expedition. Fooling various idiots as to his identity and purpose through the use of fictions and rhetorical flourishes is a satisfying exercise. His head is fuzzy but willpower triumphs. He’s fine. Soon John will return. They will continue with business. Everything is fine.

 

**John**

John buys an imported copy of _The Times_ and sits for a long time at a table in the dark back of a Valletta café, nursing his hangover, at first trying not to think and then giving up and getting on with it.

Last night they were incredibly reckless, even by Sherlock’s standards. John let himself get drawn in cock-first because he was, and is, so very glad that Sherlock’s alive. But John’s going to have to raise his game, if he wants them to both to stay that way. And so is Sherlock – if he can.

John’s only been here for a day, but it is blatantly obvious something is wrong. He knows reactive trauma inside and out, and what he’s been seeing since yesterday evening is something else. As for whether he can do anything about it... that will require him to figure out what it is. Always assuming Sherlock will admit there’s a problem in the first place.

John pays for his coffee and goes home to find Sherlock in the kitchen making calls and texting, all trace of torpor completely gone. He breaks off for long enough to tell John that some of the info from last night has led through a chain of contacts to a matriarch in what passes for the local mafia, whose speciality is using her encyclopaedic local connections. They are going out to find her in twenty minutes, Sherlock says. He’s so pleased about his morning’s work that he does one of his little twirls of excitement and his arm catches the slate chopping board from the kitchen island and sends it clattering to the floor. 

‘Great,’ says John as he reaches to open the fridge, resigning himself to the fact that now is probably not the time for a little chat about feelings. At least nobody’s either shouting or comatose with despair. And Sherlock...

Sherlock is whirling around in the direction of the fallen board, face twisted with rage. For a moment his eyes catch John’s, then he grabs up the board and heaves it full-force across the room. It smashes against the far wall, shards of it dropping down or pinging out to fetch up against metal dining furniture with a silly tinkle. Sherlock slams his palm into the corner of the worktop, yells ‘SHIT!’, then he raises both hands and holds them a few inches from the sides of his head as if trying to control himself with an invisible force. Beads of blood seep from his damaged skin.

There is fear in his eyes. 

‘Jesus Christ,’ he snarls. ‘You do not have the slightest idea, not the _slightest_ idea, do you?’

John swallows. This is not good, this is very not good, but he has to remain calm, and try to influence Sherlock in that direction as well. They can’t call 999 here, can’t even risk walking into a hospital. Battlefield medicine, then. Try to stabilise the patient.

‘No, I probably don’t,’ John says. ‘So how about you tell me?’

Sherlock moves forwards. He looms aggressively into John’s personal space and there is such compacted vitriol in his glare that John winces. He could take this skinny civilian down in seconds, but the thought of doing so is wretched. 

‘Is this like shooting the wall?’ John persists, still calm and quiet.

At that, Sherlock spins away, laughing like a hyena, although the joke eludes John. 

‘The wall was boredom, _Doctor_ Watson, the initial stages of brain rot. Said malady afflicts me on occasion, and at present appears to be alternating with cerebral holocaust. Perhaps the effect escapes your detection, but inanities interpolate themselves between myself and the object of study and I – _I_ – am distracted. I forget, John. Moment by moment. I become mesmerised by sex, or even random visual detail. Can you imagine what it costs me to report this? If only it were cocaine, and the dosage under my control! What a tender world that would be. But it is not cocaine, Doctor Watson; so _what the fuck is wrong with me?_ ’

Sherlock wheels around again, glaring, but he doesn’t come closer to John. He leans against a dining chair as if it is simply supporting his weight, except John can see the chair is trembling. Sherlock is trembling. 

John’s instincts are screaming: _fight, protect_. The trouble is working out what and how, particularly with other distractions dragging at his attention ( _‘Mesmerised’ by sex, is that why you shagged me?!_ ) But he holds his ground and his mind ranges over the surreal extremes of the past week, which have been more than just moodswings. The incoherent message from Vegas, and its chipper, not to mention horny, successor calls and texts; Sherlock’s ecstasy of last night, his numb immobility this morning, his sourceless anger now. Now Sherlock is talking about concentration problems, albeit extreme ones. How does it all match up? 

John needs time, and more data before he pretends any certainty. As a GP, albeit one who refers psychiatric patients swiftly onwards, he knows that mental health conditions are more treatable than is often supposed. He also knows that ‘treatable’ is not ‘curable’, and that some conditions are degenerative. His overwhelming reaction to that idea with regard to Sherlock is _please God, no_. But John is not one to back away from trouble. 

‘Mental health isn’t my field,’ he says. ‘But if you’ll tell me more about what you’ve been experiencing, and for how long, I can look into it.’

Sherlock seems to think for a lengthy moment. Then he releases the chair. He stands up straight and gropes with his hands around shoulder level as if he were trying to adjust the lapels of one of his exquisitely tailored jackets – only there is no suit, he’s wearing a cheap-looking t-shirt that says ‘Tenerife sun’. John feels a nervous smile start to quirk up one side of his face, until Sherlock catches him with a glare which says quite clearly that Sherlock knows perfectly well he just made a slight error and only an imbecile would bother drawing attention to it.

‘What I am experiencing, doctor, resembles in figurative terms an attempt by my mind to wrench itself apart at the seams,’ explains Sherlock. He’s staring straight ahead now, and sounds like he might be orating the Yellow Pages. ‘I contra...’ – there is a tiny bob of Sherlock’s Adam’s apple – ‘I contradict myself. The external world and my own thoughts appear alternately or even simultaneously intolerable and distorted by exaltation, which should not be possible. I am also excessively irritated. While my intellect remains quite capable of rising above the discord, the effort this requires is increasing. I may have lapsed in Las Vegas.’

Sherlock’s voice cracks unmistakably on the last word. A good chunk of John just wants to take his lover in his arms, but first and foremost here he needs to be a professional. Psychiatric jargon seeps up from his memory, making him feel a little more on top of things. Yes: Sherlock seems to be in unbroken contact with reality, and that, in tandem with the absence of other markers such as chaotic speech, would seem to rule out thought disorders. Thank God.

‘Which is to say – John, I am _losing my mind_.’

Sherlock breaks down. Only momentarily, but his head drops and his shoulders jerk visibly before he pulls himself together and stiffens up again. John hesitates, now unsure if comfort would be appropriate or wanted. After a second, he settles on keeping his distance. Sherlock may not actually be his patient, but John has to treat him that way right now because nobody else is going to. 

‘OK,’ he says, settling into doctor mode. ‘You don’t seem to have any trouble with things like where you are and who you’re talking to, so we can probably rule out any kind of schizophrenic process. Other than that, we're down to me speculating on what might be wrong with you, but I can probably come up with some ideas if you let me keep an eye on you for a while, and also take a family history. Maybe not right now, but when you can face it. So while I'm not prepared to give you an instant diagnosis, if you’re willing to keep talking to me about this and not shut me out we can probably start treating the symptoms. There’s a good chance they’ll respond to medication.’

Sherlock glares at John. ‘I said no pills,’ he states very clearly. 

‘Right,’ John agrees, and bites back on adding _for now_. Presumably Sherlock is worried they’ll dull his faculties and to be honest John shares that concern. It would still be better than Sherlock going off the deep end... but now is not the time to argue.

For the present, Sherlock has apparently recovered himself enough to settle in one of the dining chairs, so John decides that Dr Watson’s done his job for now, and goes over to put a hand on his lover’s shoulder. When Sherlock reaches up to cover the hand with his own, John is surprised and touched.

‘All right,’ John says. ‘You tell me your theory about all this. I bet you’ve spent the last couple of weeks chewing through more psych journals than I’ve ever heard of, and diagnosed yourself already. I always get the patients who do that.’

The grip on John’s hand tightens a little, and Sherlock looks up into his eyes. He’s giving John the classic you’re-a-moron stare, but there’s something bewildered about it as well. John suddenly realises that the genius who dragged him out of depression by sheer force of personality is so terrified by the chaos in his own head that he actually hasn’t thought to research it.

‘Sherlock... I’m here to fight your enemies with you,’ John says. That includes the invisible ones. John has experience with those bastards.

Sherlock nods, and seems to wake up a little.

‘I knew that your being psychologically damaged would come in useful one day,’ he says. ‘I am unwilling to tolerate ever-increasing impairment, and am open to medical recommendations.’

So long as they don’t include pills, apparently. But still, Sherlock’s words are a concession, and the accompanying insult comes as a relief to John. Sherlock seems to be back to some version of normal: he stands up, visibly pulling himself together.

‘All right,’ he goes on, nodding curtly. ‘We can continue with this later. Now, if you insist on eating merely because it is the middle of the day, I suggest you do so quickly. We are going out as soon as I have memorised the street map and salient statistics of our destination.’

 

**Sherlock**

This little old woman, running a hole-in-the-wall vegetable shop in Mosta as a cover for her real business, is delightful. Sherlock’s mood has switched again in the snap of a moment and the fires in his head are banked and laced with inspiration, slightly drunk with possibility. If he’s not entirely himself, then he’s utterly replete with potential; as ever he has the mastery of all he sees. 

He can tell from her covert, assessing look that the woman fancies herself observant, although she doesn’t even know her daughter is embezzling from her. Sherlock considers telling her later on just as a flourish, but then he’d have to deal with the tiresome denials.

Instead, he selects a hand of ginger from a tub. John, who is wearing a transcendently ridiculous sunhat by way of disguise and has been keeping an endearing if tiresomely obsessive watch on Sherlock since their conversation at the house, and is now pretending to browse fruit boxes behind him, inhales sharply. That makes Sherlock grin, but they’ll have time to discuss – if that is the correct verb, which he hopes it isn’t – his choice of root vegetables later. 

As he makes his purchase he murmurs to the old woman, ‘I’m also looking for proper Maltese peaches.’ 

It’s the code for real business, and it gets her attention. She squints up at him, taking in his silly tourist clothing and giving him a sceptical look.

Sherlock almost groans. _For God’s sake, woman_ , he wills her. _You’ve heard of the concept of disguise?!_

‘Then I’m looking for money,’ she says.

Ah. Better. So she’s at least bright enough to figure him for serious. 

‘I have a job for Philip Zagami,’ he says. ‘I believe you can find him?’

The shopkeeper raises her eyebrows and wraps her hands in the lap of her floral print dress. ‘Many Zagamis here,’ she says. ‘It's a south Italian name. Italy is close.’

‘I think you know who I mean,’ says Sherlock. Then he hazards it: ‘And you know the name Moriarty.’

The old woman goes still. Then she turns her back on Sherlock and sells a melon to a local man with a string bag. When she faces Sherlock again, her eyes narrow.

‘Is that a threat? Moriarty is dead.’ she says.

Sherlock lets his expression harden to match hers. ‘You think the Moriarty syndicate is just one person? Philip Zagami is a competent sniper and we have further work for him. You may as well profit from it.’

The old woman doesn’t answer for a moment. Instead, she glances at John, whose bearing has been gradually stiffening as Sherlock tells lies. ‘That one, who's trying to hide. He's a soldier,’ she says.

‘How perceptive of you. I can assure you, obstructing us is not worth the inconvenience it will bring.’

The old woman gives him another long, assessing look. Then she waves her hand before leaving it suspended, palm up, in front of Sherlock. ‘I will contact Senor Zagami. He will meet you if he wants.’

Sherlock writes one of his mobile numbers on a piece of paper, then extracts two hundred-dollar bills from his tourist bumbag and places the little pile in the outstretched hand before him. 

The transaction is completed in moments, and Sherlock and John are on their way back past the spindly trees and bowed railing window grilles of the quiet, sunny residential street. John looks uneasy and harrumphs, but if he wants something he’ll have to ask for it, because Sherlock is basking in information; even this tiny place is rich and replete with data, and he swivels his head smoothly, scanning the crumbling yellow houses around him, computer sharp, infallible, memorising and storing. One of the buildings is inhabited by a policeman; another is occasionally used to by the local youth to smoke cannabis. A hundred other tiny details cascade through Sherlock’s mind and are marked for storage or deletion. He registers efficiency, intellect, the dominion of facts: better than sex. And there will be sex, later, too.

‘All right, how do you know Zagami won’t just ignore the message?’ complains John after a minute. ‘Or research us and come after us? Anyway, why would the old woman even contact him now you’ve paid her?’

Ah. Sunlight warms Sherlock’s face as they turn a corner. He determines the medical history of an old man sitting on a wooden chair outside his front door. His brain hums at a perfect pitch of satisfaction.

‘Because, John, he’s that woman’s nephew or son or cousin.’ 

Sherlock pauses. On cue, John gives him the respectful I’m-about-to-be-amazed-aren’t-I look, and Sherlock continues: ‘Criminal networks are often family-based in this part of the world, and our vegetable-selling matriarch is married to an Italian immigrant herself. You must have seen her wedding ring, an engraving of a woman facing a man with a flower bouquet between them? An Italian tradition. And she tried to cover her hand. Why bother unless there is some connection? That rules out the possibility that she won’t tell Zagami of our interest and leaves only the question of whether he will contact us, or attempt to seek us out and neutralise us. While the former is most desirable, the latter would be acceptable as we have a defensible residence and we will be ready to kill him instead.’

As deductions go it’s quite a minor one. John absorbs it in a stolid, thoughtful way; Sherlock is slightly disappointed not to get an exclamation of amazement, but it’s fine. Everything is fine really, though it is puzzling that John doesn’t look entirely happy. The sun beats down. Because he can, Sherlock deduces the number of bicycles that have passed across a particular patch of dirt since yesterday.

‘This is one hell of a dangerous game,’ says John testily at last, as they turn out of the narrow street and stroll towards their rental car, just a pair of tourists gone slightly off the beaten track. ‘Yes, I suppose putting the ball in Zagami’s court probably is necessary, if we don’t want to stay here forever. I just wish you’d ask me before you do things that affect both of us, Sherlock, is all. I just wish you’d ask.’

Good; John is isn’t refusing to co-operate. ‘Sorry,’ says Sherlock, because he’s learnt that John likes that, and he really does need John on board with this. The concession earns him a grudging half-smile.

That evening, under John’s direction, they fortify the house from the inside. It’s remarkably easy, as defence against military incursion was considered a priority when Valletta was built, and metre-thick stone walls plus small, few and deeply recessed windows were in vogue. That’s why Sherlock chose this house; he thinks of everything, and he knows John is aware of the fact. Sherlock has left the ginger on the table downstairs with the peeler next to it, as well. He has ostentatiously washed himself.

Towards the end of the process of obstructing the house’s two windows, Sherlock’s phone rings. It is, or the Italian-accented voice claims to be, Zagami. He sets the terms of a meeting: both parties are to come alone for a rendezvous at a cove in the south of the island. The man sounds relaxed and slightly intrigued as, pulling faces for John’s benefit all the while, Sherlock hams up his earnest criminal voice and drops references to operations by Moriarty’s network that only a trusted aide – or a detective genius who’s spent four months researching the matter – could know about.

‘It could be a decoy,’ says John after the call is over and he’s gone back to cleaning the guns they stole yesterday.

‘Naturally,’ says Sherlock. He’s relaxing on the sofa now, and the sight of John bare-chested and focused, breaking a light sweat as the muscles work smoothly in his arms, may be the most compelling thing he has ever seen in his life. ‘But the chances of an interruption tonight are decreased.’

John looks up for a moment and wipes his forehead. Sherlock spreads his legs wider, because subtlety is not currently of interest, and notes with satisfaction the responding hunger in John’s expression, although there is also a doctorish overtone to it.

‘You’re OK to do this, are you?’ John asks. ‘I mean, after... this morning.’

That was _not_ what Sherlock wanted to talk about. He snaps his legs shut and leans forwards.

‘While our scene yesterday was high diverting, I suspect that my reason will not actually disintegrate under the sheer pressure of your attentions. Yes, please tie me up and violate me. You may have noticed that I enjoy it.’

At that, John quirks a slight smile.

‘Yes, I did,’ he says. ‘All right, but we stay in this room. No bondage that I can’t undo in seconds.’ Then he goes back to cleaning 

The process takes a further four and a half minutes. Sherlock runs through a breakdown of the island’s geology, as studied online in the early hours of this morning, in his head. Then John wipes his hands methodically on a rag, and slowly walks over to stand in front of Sherlock and look him slowly up and down.

‘Can you take pain just because I tell you to?’ John asks.

The question is unexpected. It indicates that John wants a scene based on submission rather than force, and that’s not the way Sherlock usually inclines. However, where John is concerned, Sherlock’s reactions are not always predictable. There is such willpower in John, which he often hints at but seldom actually shows, and it interests Sherlock immoderately.

‘Yes,’ Sherlock says.

He’s barely got the word out before it turns into a cry, because John’s arm has shot out and the side of Sherlock’s head is aflame with pain. John is gripping and twisting his ear, nails digging into the earlobe. Sherlock whimpers and by an effort of will forces his arms to stay at his sides, twisting his head to lessen the discomfort and also to keep staring into John’s eyes, which are sparking with sadistic anticipation. God yes, Sherlock wants this man to hurt him.

‘Are you still in pain from yesterday? Your arse and back?’ John demands, and when Sherlock nods awkwardly John lets go of his ear and straddles his lap. John’s thighs crush Sherlock’s together, and his fingers shove in between Sherlock and the sofa, seeking out the welts through his thin shirt. John thrusts his tongue into Sherlock’s mouth, and his hands range around Sherlock’s upper body as if he was a toy while Sherlock kisses passionately back but leaves his own arms trailing limply on either side of him because as of now he _is_ a toy for John to hurt and fuck and immolate in pleasure. _Yes_. He wants it, wants to give in, wants to take whatever John metes out.

John pulls back from the kiss.

‘I remembered who we are this afternoon,’ he says a little breathlessly. ‘You take risks, and they’re stupid, and I go along with them because we actually both like it.’ 

John’s weight has shifted a little; enough for Sherlock to buck up against him, grinding crotch to crotch.

‘And we both like this,’ Sherlock says, hearing the hitch in his own voice too. ‘A fine pair of perverts, I believe you said.’

‘God, yes.’

John’s hand goes up to Sherlock’s neck and pushes his head back so it bangs against the wall. Sherlock’s throat is constricted; not enough to suffocate but enough to stop speech and make his breathing harsh and noisy, and he realises he’s also moaning with each breath, a shameless fuck-me sound. _Yes yes take me, hurt me, interest me. John._

Abruptly John’s presence lifts away.

‘Get up,’ he orders. ‘Strip, but only from the waist down. I’ve seen the ginger root, and I’ve no objection at all to ramming it up your arse and watching you squirm. It so happens I’ve brought something myself that will go with it excellently.’ 

Sherlock obeys while John goes downstairs. He’s long since out of his trousers and waiting as submissively as he can manage when John comes back with a bowl of water, a flannel, washing up liquid, a well-carved finger of ginger – and a tube of _Deep Heat_ ointment poking out of his jeans pocket. Sherlock hasn’t played with the stuff in years, but he’s familiar with it from an experimental adolescence.

This situation requires no deductive skill. Sherlock’s not going to just get a bit of ginger up his arse but hot cream on his cock. He’s not sure if he’ll be able to endure much of that, but clearly he’s about to find out.

John puts the soap and water down in the corner. Then he walks up to Sherlock and pulls his t-shirt over his head, but instead of removing it completely he leaves it around Sherlock’s neck and biceps and knots up the base, forming a kind of loose bag that contains Sherlock’s head and arms. ‘Sit down on the floor,’ he orders. ‘Get this under your bum, and lie back.’

Sherlock does as he’s told and finds that ‘this’ is a sofa cushion, positioned to angle his sensitive areas upwards for John’s convenience. He wriggles, settling into position, and feeling the t-shirt bag settle loosely on him. All he can see is light, and vague shapes filtered through the material. John kicks him to make him spread his legs wider, then he looms between Sherlock and the light, gathering up folds of t-shirt.

‘Open wide,’ John instructs, then he stuffs the wodge of material into Sherlock’s mouth. ‘If you have anything to say from now on, well, I am not fucking interested.’

John’s shadow withdraws. Sherlock’s sight and power of speech are gone, he’s let them go; he thinks of how he must look like this and he groans into the moistening gag because yes, yes, yes, he is a thing now, dick, balls and a hole splayed out for John’s amusement. Sherlock never cared before how much he affected a partner, but he does tonight. And John is pleased with him. Sherlock hears it in John’s breathing, senses it in the way he moves.

John is starting to stroke him, gentle fingers up and down his perineum and around his balls. The message is clear enough, that there’s plenty of time for pain and John will inflict it when he feels inclined to do so. Sherlock is in no hurry either, as he’s starting to float just from lying here abandoned to John, but eventually one stroking hand lifts away and a forefinger begins to play around Sherlock’s arsehole. It drags gently at the raised rim, then winkles in for a moment as if testing. Soon after, the blunt tip of the peeled ginger root bumps against sensitive membranes and then, with a gentle push, slides in, slick with its own juice. John eases it gently backwards and forwards until it settles. Sherlock feels his muscles clenching tidily around the carved indent at the base of the ginger, leaving the stopper outside.

Everything goes still. Sherlock squirms just a little, because this doesn’t really hurt yet, it only mildly stretches... then it starts, the slow build of pain inside him. John caresses Sherlock’s hip and Sherlock twines his hands together inside the tied t-shirt, feeling his body refocus around the intimate violation that connects him to John. John settles a hand on his stomach and Sherlock presses gently up into it, wanting the touch, communicating the shudder that runs through him as the pain intensifies then settles as a consistent burn, dragging him further into headspace, anchored by John. _I love_... Sherlock thinks, and a whimper escapes through the gag.

‘You took that beautifully,’ says John after another minute. ‘Now I’m going to put _Deep Heat_ on your cock and balls. Not all at once, and if you do need to safeword I can mostly wash it off, but I’m going to _cover_ you in it. Let’s see what you can take.’

Sherlock groans into the makeshift gag, wanting John to understand how very much he’s up for this. It’s going to be intense. He’ll try to endure, but that will get harder, and he’ll start to squirm, and then he’ll lose control, and maybe John will have to wrestle him down as the cream burns hotter, deeper... God please yes. Briefly it crosses his mind that there is a still a risk of hostile visitors. Well, if so, he’ll have enough adrenaline to wipe out an army.

Something cold swipes along the side of one of his bollocks. The same thing happens on the other side, and a few seconds later, the burn starts up, fiercer than the ginger though so far spread over a smaller area. Immediately Sherlock’s cock stiffens further, as if expressly to show how much he gets off on this, on John’s sadistic pleasure and his own physical pain. ‘Ah,’ he hears John exhale, overhead.

And that’s when it begins. The drifting and the change.

First, it’s just a moment of distraction. It occurs to Sherlock that, for no currently definable reason, all is not well. He’s in pain of course, but that’s hardly the issue. He tries to search his mind for the problem, and at the same time his thoughts lurch downwards.

 _God no no no. This_ cannot _happen now_.

Sherlock fights. Ten seconds ago his mind was different, and logic dictates that its previous state is reattainable. There was rich sensation, himself splayed and ready, his lover over him, John. _John._ Sherlock fights to hold these things, and blackness swirls in anyway, drowning meaning, seeping into every thought and leeching it null.

Sherlock’s balls and arse hurt. Somewhere overhead John is breathing in a manner suggestive of excitement. Things exist.

‘Sherlock, are you all right?’ says John uncertainly. ‘You don’t want to safeword?’

Sherlock forces access to a part of himself that has eluded the darkness. This fragment is insistent that John must not see him like this. John must not know. 

He shakes his head inside the t-shirt. John seems to withdraw, then there’s a dab of smoothness on Sherlock’s glans and, a few seconds later, the inevitable burning. At the same time, he feels his cock starting to soften. 

There is a lack where impulse of any kind would normally reside.

Sherlock’s head lolls to the side and the sodden t-shirt drops out of his mouth. The self-fragment is screaming at him, and he is empty of response. He was this way in the morning when John woke. He has been this way before in Malta. 

It is becoming more frequent.

The air hurts his limbs.

‘OK, there’s clearly something wrong. Magnesium. I’m stopping,’ says John. Within seconds the t-shirt has been pulled right over Sherlock’s head and he sees worried eyes above him for a moment before John moves away to tug the ginger out of him and apply a moist flannel to his throbbing balls.

‘Now, do _not_ just tell me what you think I want to hear,’ John says. ‘And yes, I do know you’d never do that, but anyway... the point is, I don’t think I bodged that scene up. Did I?’

Sherlock listens to John with detached interest. It seems that words from John are not subject to the darkness. His intervention allows Sherlock to say ‘No,’ and with that the despair is weakened slightly, and he sits upright against the sofa base.

‘All right. I was selfish to start a scene knowing you’re not yourself,’ John goes on. A current of frustration is running counter to the sympathy in his voice. ‘Yesterday it seemed to help, but today... well clearly not. What’s going on in your head, Sherlock? You have to let me in.’

Sherlock constructs sentences from willpower, then releases them whole. 

‘The scene was highly enjoyable.’ Pause. ‘I am getting worse.’

That admission should surely shake the building. Sherlock watches John for a suitable reaction, and instead sees his statement fall by the wayside as superfluous, an accepted fact. He has fallen so far that his sickness is a given. 

He cannot remember the light. A spark of himself is adrift in the blackness. John puts his arm around him. The gesture fails.

Sherlock can feel himself speaking: ‘Please stay with me.’ 

John sighs.

Sherlock believes that John hates him. This belief is duly screened by logic and ejected, but only by violent effort. That such mental exertion should be required simply to reach obvious conclusions is an abomination. 

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ John says. 

For hours they sit together on the sofa. John has the laptop and is reading medical pages: _endogenous, affect, severe_. What is left of Sherlock is curled up in the watchful core of his self, running through the periodic table by way of grasping at a consistent reality, awaiting the lurch that will plunge him into the next arbitrary amalgam of rage, darkness, fear, exaltation. Gradually suffusing them all is confusion: he cannot remember parts of the previous days, the names of the streets he memorised earlier are blurring together, and he cannot recall word for word his conversation with Zagami. It is like Vegas, except then he was too focused to care. Now he sees that his mind is unmaking. Worse than the worst of the drugs, because it is beyond his control.

The face of his late mother surfaces again.

Sherlock rests his head on John’s shoulder. The night wears on, and John stays beside him. They both sleep at some point, and Sherlock wakes around five. 

He continues at first the way he has been, churning and blank, until at 5.47, as he is staring at dust under the TV unit, all the lights in his head go on at once. It feels like levitation, a rush of bubbles riding up his mind: _everything is all right_. He scrambles to his feet. The infinite possibility, infinite depth, infinite texture of his surroundings enfold him... and he is aware, through and beyond the moment of transition, that this is wrong. The walls of reality have grown thin, and somehow he has come to spend his life punching through them from one windowless chamber into another and another. Some chambers are dark, some are blindingly lit, and all of them are empty of anything real. This is unsustainably wretched. He will starve here.

This is glorious. He flourishes again. The paradox exhilarates and appals.

Careful not to wake dear, snoring John, Sherlock skips lightly over his partner’s jutting feet and hurries downstairs with the laptop. He must check in with certain contacts before the meeting later, as his plan – to convince Zagami that he is in fact ‘Moriarty’, the fake death at Bart’s having been a ruse to stop the authorities from identifying him – will benefit from completely up-to-date information.

He doesn’t really need to do this; the world can only go the way that Sherlock wills it to. John doesn’t fully understand that, however, so for his sake Sherlock will cover all angles.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John has two main worries: that the gunman they’re tracking must be aware of them by now, and that Sherlock’s instability is getting worse. He’s about to find out if he’s right.

**John**

Lying on his front amongst a jumble of rocks which gives him both cover and a good angle to shoot as required, John waits for Zagami and his inevitable entourage to arrive. It’s quiet here; a pebble beach with only a few bathers. They will be witnesses but both John and Sherlock are, somewhat ridiculously, disguised. It’s the best they can do. Speed is key.

Sherlock is sitting in their rental car, which is now sporting fake licence plates. Once the targets arrive, it may be as simple as John shooting them as they get out of their vehicle. Equally likely, Sherlock will have to go over to them and lead them near enough to John for him to drop them. Sherlock is depressed, or he was when they got here, but he claims to be able to switch himself on enough to do what’s required.

John’s own role in the operation is something he accepted when he flew out here. The Army trained him to act on certainties dictated by Queen and Country, and medicine trained him to establish the facts of a case before proceeding logically with treatment. Zagami and his circle are known assassins, so John has no moral objection to their termination. As for Sherlock, he apparently just assumes that John will do what’s required.

And John probably will.

That does not make the job pleasant. The only certainty John can rely on now is that he’s protecting a man who’s supposed to be dead and is definitely disturbed. After last night’s research John suspects he can name the kind and course of the disturbance, and that discovery has relieved him a little, but still he’s been shaken. So many times he’s defended Sherlock’s sanity, only for it now to turn out that his friend’s mind genuinely is imbalanced. 

They argued this morning. It was brief and venomous. When John woke up and found Sherlock in the cellar working away on some noxious substance, he asked, ‘Feeling any better?’, to which Sherlock snapped back, ‘Yes, obviously.’ John ventured, ‘I think I might have an idea of what’s wrong with you,’ and that just got him shouted at, on the subject of how Sherlock was perfectly fine and pills (which John hadn’t even mentioned) were for the intellectually defective. Angry, but knowing better than to act on it (the unfairness of the fact that now they’re finally together in every way, Sherlock has become a patient to be managed is something best not thought about) John retreated, storing up the conversation for later. There was, admittedly, some sense in the idea of leaving such a serious discussion until after the day’s business.

But it remains that, after the heartache of last night, Sherlock rejected him again. It seems the price of being here only gets higher. John could walk away... No he couldn’t, he knows that, but lying uncomfortably among the rocks, waiting to kill in cold blood, it seems at least possible to imagine it. Grit is hard and sharp beneath his elbows and thighs, but psychologically he can’t feel much ground underneath him. Hyper-sexuality is a common symptom, so could sex with John be in the same class as Sherlock’s new interest in women’s arses? And if Sherlock won’t accept that he needs medication – which basically means pills – to manage all this...

An SUV drives onto the paved area at the top of the beach. 

Instantly John shoulders his gun, fumbling with it a little, because the damn thing is right on the verge of being too long in the stock for him. The car has stopped right at the top of the concrete, which means Sherlock is going to have to lead the targets down into range, assuming the two men getting out of the vehicle and lounging beside it are indeed Zagami and a companion. 

Sherlock emerges from the rental car and strolls over to them. John studies his face for signs of instability but there’s nothing there beyond the agreed mask of hard-man civility. John feels relieved, and then ashamed for doubting Sherlock’s ability to control the situation.

When Sherlock, reaches Zagami and his sidekick, they summarily overpower him and shove him into the back of the SUV before jumping into it themselves and reversing it quickly up the road. 

People continue splashing in the water. Someone shouts: ‘Woo-hoo!’

It takes every scrap of John’s training to make him stop even long enough to conceal the rifle in his backpack. Heart pounding, he scrambles over the rocks and pelts across the beach to the car. He somehow manages to start driving and then alternate wheel time with directing the laptop software to track Sherlock’s signal, praying that Zagami doesn’t have the sense to locate Sherlock’s smartphone and throw it out of the window. 

John’s mind is ice clear and empty, except that words scroll through it, a mantra of _fuck no fuck no fuck no_ fuck _it!_ as he lurches the car up the hill to the interior of the island. The phone signal locks on and John experiences a moment of relief; in the same second the anger floods in and he becomes aware that if these men harm Sherlock he will not shoot them but instead rip their faces off with the knife in his boot and watch them drown in their own blood. If he loses Sherlock again then nothing else, big or small, will ever signify. John wanted a greater certainty, and here it is. He will do anything to save his lover.

John passes through a reception dead zone then reconnects to the phone signal. He’s lost precious time to a wrong guess of direction. Snarling, he backtracks up tiny lanes and once across a field.

The journey feels eternal but doesn’t in fact take long. As John drives up a dirt track towards a shabby-looking barn, someone shoots at him, nicking the top of his side mirror. He brakes then bails out of the car, gun clutched under his arm, to crouch behind an outcrop of roadside cacti, seeing movement through the spiky pads. Movement of what – head, arm, chest? It’s unclear. But John didn’t survive Afghanistan without honing his instincts. He takes an educated guess and fires at what seems to be the core of the movement.

He hears a body fall.

John skirts the vegetation, gun held ready to use as a club. What he sees on the ground is a bloody mess; fingers to the neck verify that there’s no pulse and that’s enough for John to dismiss the corpse from his mind and take only the necessary time to reload before turning his steps towards the barn, brain on adrenaline autopilot, instincts back on the plains of Afghanistan and screaming _hunt, target, kill_. 

Through the broken planking of the barn door, John sees Sherlock tied to a chair. A short, slight man is leaning over him. Their heads are too close together for John to safely shoot. 

There is also a 9mm Glock in Zagami’s hand.

The Italian is looking around himself, obviously spooked by the earlier shooting. He hasn’t detected John’s presence... but Sherlock, of course, has.

As if he’s seeing something welcome there and unable to stop himself, Sherlock’s eyes flicker repeatedly towards the barn’s one window, which is situated well away from the door – a decoy. Zagami swings the gun around to aim in that direction, leaving himself open, but he’s a short man and standing up his head is hardly above Sherlock’s. He edges in front of Sherlock – John can’t get a sufficiently clear shot. When nothing happens over by the window, Zagami snarls something, grabs Sherlock by the hair and presses the gun to his temple.

The image sears itself into John’s retina: a slight, brown-haired man, who looks nondescript in much the same way John does, about to murder Sherlock, who is staring ahead with a detached expression, as if working on a deduction that is far more interesting than anything visible. For one appalling moment, John expects to hear a shot – and then he does hear one. It’s him, firing before it’s too late.

But his aim is slightly off. He’s not used to this gun, its proportions aren’t right for him, and while he wants to be an avenging miracle right now it seems he’s only human. Thank God the slug doesn’t hit Sherlock, but it doesn’t hit Zagami either. Instead it smashes a hole the size of a football through the back wall of the barn. 

The assassin spins to face the door, pistol raised. John throws himself to the side, away from the door, so he’s shielded by the stone wall, part of an old cottage maybe, that forms part of the front of the barn. He listens feverishly as he reloads the rifle, then he holds out a bit of fallen plank as if it were his head peering around the gap at the edge of the battered door.

No response from inside the barn. Either Zagami couldn’t see the plank, or he thought John was creating a diversion before actually shooting through the window. John hopes the latter, because his next trick depends on it. He picks up a pebble and throws it at the barn window at the same time as he throws himself through the bashed-up door...

... and he knows his ploy hasn’t worked. For a split second he’s staring down Zagami’s gun barrel.

But the Italian is wavering. Sherlock’s hand has stretched out from the seeming bondage and grabbed at his thigh. For a moment the pistol is swinging towards Sherlock’s head again, but then Zagami overbalances and goes down, shooting wide. As he rolls on the ground John fires. Blood sprays up and outwards from Zagami’s cratered skull, splattering Sherlock’s side. John spins around, looking for more enemies. If Sherlock hasn’t sensed them they probably aren’t here, but John’s veins are thrumming with adrenaline and relief. There’s nobody though, so John looks at Sherlock, and Sherlock is just sitting there, tousled but unharmed in the messy ropes... and the world is slowing down. 

If there are emotions other than _I love you, you’re safe, I love you_ , John appears to have lost them for the present.

‘Ah. As I expected,’ says Sherlock.

‘Oh God,’ says John. He puts the gun down carefully; it suddenly weighs a tonne. ‘All right. Let me untie you.’ Before starting, he kisses Sherlock, but only on the back of his head. If they touch any more intimately John might not be able to let go. Time for that later. 

‘It should be easy,’ comments Sherlock, sounding unbothered. He flexes the hand he used to fell Zagami. ‘Really, why are criminals so poor at bondage? I blame TV. Any moment I was expecting to be gagged with rope as well, and it’s so difficult not to let it fall out of your mouth.’

John grunts. Now nobody’s life is in immediate danger he’s remembering their other small problem. Sherlock is apparently high at the moment, and that’s better than depressed or raging, but they still can’t afford the distraction.

‘Very clever, but what about the fact that we can’t cover all this up?’ John says, gesturing around him. ‘I left another man dead out there, too. We need to get off the island, fast.’ He’s getting back on track, focusing on the practical.

‘Hmmm,’ says Sherlock, as if considering a suggestion made by a child. ‘Not immediately, John. Too suspicious. Book us to fly out tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime, we can burn my rather horrible garments in the kitchen range. The ropes we take with us. As for the bodies, clearly we cannot conceal them with available resources so we bring them in here and leave them. They will be discovered in due course but Zagami is an Italian with a criminal record so I suspect little action will result except local press hand-wringing about intra-mafia violence spilling over onto their little island. We won’t be traced.’

‘Right,’ says John, crouching behind the chair and working at the ropes around Sherlock’s waist. He might not agree with every word of that, but it’s workable. ‘We have a plan. But what about the fact these buggers were on to us and ambushed our ambush? That’s not good news.’

‘It appears I was in fact recognised by the vegetable shop woman,’ replies Sherlock, using the tone of voice which means a suspected imbecile has turned out to be at least half-witted. ‘Zagami was going to torture me to find out how I tricked Moriarty, then kill me for a bonus payment since he concluded that if I am alive Moriarty is too – or something like that. I confess didn’t quite follow his logic, probably because it was non-existent. Discount assassins are not noted for intelligence. Still, this is a fascinating development. I suspect it means Kolyvanov will be waiting for us.’

Oh. Really. Fascinating, John’s arse. They have, as he thought, been taking too many risks. He’s trusted Sherlock’s judgement, and the man’s reckless enough normally, and now... Well, now the remaining, and by all accounts most well-connected and formidable, gunman will be actively hunting them, aware that they’ll kill him if he doesn’t get in there first. 

‘Don’t worry,’ says Sherlock, looking around and down at John. ‘We’re perfectly safe.’

Sherlock’s tone is getting increasingly vehement, and something about it makes the hairs on John’s neck prickle. When he finishes untying the knots at Sherlock’s waist, Sherlock gets up and steps out of the remaining coils before striding purposefully towards the barn window and staring out of it. John tries to keep a lid on his patience and not demand to know what the hell could be so important out there that it’s worth hanging around here for, but he’s only human and the words break out of him: ‘Sherlock, what are you talking about? And staring at?’

Sherlock turns around and smiles at John. The expression is a little sheepish, and – John wishes he did not have to make this judgement but oh fuck he does – quite a lot mad.

‘I can’t be harmed, John,’ Sherlock says. ‘The sky is sparkling. It is astonishingly beautiful.’ 

For a moment Sherlock shakes his head as if trying to dislodge something, then he goes back to staring at the small patch of cloudy sky visible through the dirty broken glass. His expression is otherworldly, transfixed.

Icy fingers trip down John’s spine. _Hell no no no_... is scrolling through his mind, but he knows panicking isn’t going to help. At least he’s not as floored by this as he would have been if he hadn’t done last night’s bout of psychiatric revision. He’s logically certain this attack is temporary, and probably even a short-term mercy to Sherlock, who might otherwise be in shock... but how bitterly he would hate to be seen like this. 

The wretchedness of it catches in John’s throat. As for himself, it feels like he’s being abandoned to deal with everything alone. Again.

All right. Time to get on with things.

‘Sherlock,’ John says in the most neutral tone he can manage. ‘I know you’ve been having some odd impulses lately, but I bet you’ve been using your intellect to offset them.’ 

Sherlock slowly turns around again. He gives John a look that is half-irritated and half-scared, and that also seems somehow to be coming from very deep inside him, beyond a thick glaze at the surface of his eyes. It looks like it takes a lot of energy to break through that barrier; John can only hope Sherlock keeps trying.

‘It would be a good idea to do something like that now,’ John continues.

Sherlock sighs. His expression hardens, then he starts talking again, very fast: ‘Oh, John, really! If you’re referring to my perception of the sky, then surely you realise I would not mistake a subjective impression of that order for empirical observation?’

When John doesn’t respond, Sherlock waves a hand briskly in the air, so that a gobbet of Zagami’s gore flies from his wrist to the dirt, then carries on as if he’d received an answer: ‘I have sufficient experience with altered brain chemistry to avoid the pitfalls that no doubt do make this category of experience dangerous to lesser minds. I analyse the aberrant phenomena logically. To take an example, although “sparkling” is workable shorthand, it would be more accurate to refer to synergistic multi-sensory perceptions of vivification, a quickening in the traditional sense, within what is normally if deceptively interpreted by the eye as a flat, blue surface.’ 

Sherlock has begun to pace, and he’s talking ever louder. John brings to mind the rambling message from Vegas. This time Sherlock isn’t alone, however; John is going to bloody well fix this nightmare. Just not right here.

‘Sherlock –’ he starts.

‘I am immune!’ Sherlock stops still for a moment and runs his hands through his short ginger hair, giving John a look that is pleading but also terrifyingly unfocused. ‘I see corpses crawl with electricity, Graf returns, and I am emotionally engaged by the vivification phenomenon, deeply so, as if this beauty were apprehended directly by my inmost being without need of translation, although the concept of the soul is entirely scientifically unsupported. I am a scientist. Paradox engages.’

There is finally a pause. John takes advantage of it.

‘OK. But I’m a scientist too, Sherlock. I know, and I think you know, that you’re not making properly rigorous use of the data. You don’t have to agree with me completely on this, just let me get us out of here, then we’ll talk. Do you understand?’

It seems to be the ‘Do you understand?’ that does it. One moment Sherlock is still pacing, then suddenly he’s looming over John, as he did back in the cellar kitchen. His body language is all menace... and his eyes are all fear. John remembers the time he was drugged at Baskerville. He kept a veneer of self-possession then. 

‘If I am afflicted with distorted perceptions, then I catalogue and control them!’ Sherlock’s voice is a snarl. ‘I killed a man, John!’ He raises his fist, and John regards it stolidly, prepared to react however is needed. Thank fuck Sherlock’s gun is lying under Zagami’s body. ‘There is a cascade of marvels through me, the sky is on _fire_!’

To John’s relief, Sherlock lowers his hand. He takes to staring out of the broken window again, his hands twitching at his sides. His excitement and distress seem utterly mingled, and John wants to put his arms around him, to see if touch might get through, but there’s no time to risk that approach. He must talk Sherlock into the car, and then worry about what to do next.

‘Yes, Sherlock. You killed a man, and now I’ve killed two more. That’s why we have to get out of here. On top of not being particularly well already, I think you’re having a severe reaction to a stressful event. I think the same thing happened in Vegas. It probably won’t last, and you’ll feel better when we’re back in Valletta. So let’s get that other body in here, and then we can go.’

Sherlock drags his eyes away from the window, and John relaxes a little when he sees that a measure of ordinary recognition has leaked back into them. Sherlock is still literally vibrating with physical tension, but it seems something real is also fighting through what John is now almost certain he should be calling mania.

‘I am hardly squeamish about corpses, John,’ Sherlock says witheringly.

‘Yes?’ Of course yes, John knows that. ‘Well, good. You’d best put your sweatshirt on inside out as well, so people don’t see the blood.’

‘Logical,’ Sherlock concurs. He pulls the ugly thing off in one swift movement, turns it inside out, tugs it back on and heads quickly for the door. John follows, allowing himself to be grateful for the respite. He feels still better when they find that the other body is still lying in the tiny lane untouched. It’s quite deserted here, and the untended cacti create an extra screen. There is a good chance they really haven’t been noticed.

Sherlock picks up the body’s feet, and John its shoulders. After a minute’s physical effort, slightly impeded by Sherlock’s determination to look at the sky instead of where they are going, they make it back to the barn, where Sherlock at his own instigation begins to wipe the bodies for fingerprints, as far as can be done. Just maybe, John lets himself hope, his friend is coming down a little.

‘Right,’ John says cautiously. ‘Shall we –‘

Sherlock straightens up from the corpses, collecting his own gun as he rises, and interrupts.

‘I am illogically prompted to kill myself,’ he says, and frowns, studying the .410. ‘This gun is still too long for a temple shot but I am presented with a precise mental image of shooting myself under the chin. The bullet would destroy the frontal lobes of my brain, explode the left side of my face and embed itself in the rafter immediately above that discarded spade. Curious. Bloodstain pattern analysis...’

Sherlock halts, actually surprised into silence. John has strode up to him and wrenched the gun out of his hand. John is fucking shaking now, never mind Sherlock, and this is going to _end_.

‘I realise you’re telling me this shit...’ starts John, then he has to wait a few seconds before starting again because his throat has closed and seems to want to stay that way. ‘I realise you’re telling me this shit not because you want to rip my heart out, but because you’re...’ he hesitates again, because challenging Sherlock with _temporarily psychotic_ does not seem a good move, ‘... really not quite right just now. At the same time, part of you is still sane, and it’s terrified, and it wants me to help. Am I right?’

Sherlock is gazing at John with such fervid intensity that for a moment his mania feels like a physical emanation. John absorbs it, waiting. 

After a few seconds, Sherlock sits back down on the old chair he was previously tied to. ‘I am _extremely_ happy, John,’ he reports, as if it this information were the first premise in a chain of reasoning. ‘Logically there is so much pleasure in this world that it flows together and my death would simply merge with it. Consummation. Such remarkable force, and I am a scientist, and new data on the relations between matter and energy are a legitimate study.’

Sherlock’s voice has taken on a pleading edge. John aches. He can’t take this, but he has to, because he knows well enough that the damn cavalry is not coming. Or rather it is, and it’s him. Time for one more try; he needs to build on Sherlock’s uncertainty.

‘OK. Yes,’ John says, trying not to sound over-conciliatory, because if Sherlock thinks he detects pity then that’s probably it for co-operation. ‘You are a scientist, and a genius, and I can see you’re trying to think your way out of this. You even half-manage it sometimes, which is honestly amazing. But what you’re asking of yourself is impossible, even for you. Please, come with me now, and as soon as we’re back in Valletta, as soon as you come down enough, I’ll tell you what I think is causing all this, and what might help.’

 _Please_ , John repeats in his mind. He cannot let Sherlock see how desperate he is. But _please_.

Sherlock gets up. He’s regarding John mutely, as if assessing a matter of abstract interest. Then he gives a stiff shrug, and walks out of the barn through the bashed-up door.

John exhales. He feels utterly wrung out, but he can’t collapse yet. Instead, he hurries to get ahead of Sherlock on the way to the car – there is absolutely no way Sherlock’s driving this time – and as he goes he tries to take just a moment to appreciate the fact that they have succeeded in their overall mission. With a possibly suspicious amount of ease, come to think of it... but then, in John’s experience, war is like that. There are seldom plots and criminal masterminds, you just kill the other guy then you go home.

Or whatever’s left of you does.

 

**Sherlock**

The world is still burgeoning as John starts to drive them back to Valletta. The scrubby landscape is drenched in meaning and jangling with colour. Faces on roadside posters radiate benignity. The sky is electric popping sparks, the seamless flat blue showing its other face as metaphor, as god, as one more manifestation of the energy which is all things. Sherlock’s body is trembling for some reason. Cacophony in touch and sight. Exquisite vividity of stimuli. Synaesthesic intoxication.

Such rhapsody is inefficient. The thought occurs suddenly, and is welcomed as a solid thing. Sherlock looks around at the fields and perpetual cacti, and their colours are now a little less urgent, as if retreating again into themselves. He takes stock, feeling oddly uncertain. They have just killed Zagami as planned, so surely all is well. If Sherlock recalls thoughts of invulnerability and suicide then they were ephemeral intrusions, quickly rejected by his intellect. An alternative would not be conceivable.

He cannot have spoken those things aloud.

Can he?

‘John?’ Sherlock tries, as they slow down behind minor traffic in a village. 

John darts a nervous look at him.

‘We’ll talk about all this back in Valletta, Sherlock, we can’t start here,’ he says, and his voice is placatory, as if Sherlock had to be managed. Or even feared? John grips the wheel tightly and stares ahead. ‘Please just wait till we get there. Don’t... do anything.’

Do what? 

Sherlock does not need the answer, because he knows. He remembers now – no, he never forgot it, the facts just seemed to fit together differently somehow – that thirty minutes ago he was ranting about the sky, about shooting himself, about logic, about immunity to death. It seemed so real: all things were so richly permeated with meaning that they united, and how could anything die? And at the same time he had wanted death, because he was – is – obscenely broken. As he looks out of the car window the sky is still crackling electric but the sparks are tinged with darkness. Black light is spreading a web over the gelid brightness of the Mediterranean landscape. Unreal. 

What he is seeing is not there.

He has gone insane.

Violent misery shoulders in. His brain is bathing in chemical effluent. In the past he chose drugs to relieve his depression, but they were under his control. Now, each of his shifting states is meaningless, defined only by its relation to the last; there is no reason in the progression, no choice, and he cannot bear life on those terms, he has no way to bear it, but still he’s breathing. If this is not a ‘schizophrenic process’, then what is it? He has some guesses. If only John would speak to him, tell him if there’s hope, because if there isn’t Sherlock will get out of the car right now and shoot himself as if dispatching a wounded dog. But John is silent. Surely disgusted. Evidently afraid. Sherlock remembers their conversation about how his symptoms will surely respond to medication. That was before John saw how utterly defiled he is.

Sherlock toes off his trainers and draws his legs up to rest his feet on the car seat, wrapping his arms around his knees. At the same time he presses his hands to his forehead. The impulse is overwhelming: to compress himself enough to be safe, to recede from the world. He emits a thin wailing sound: small, silly. A core self continues to log and classify these ludicrous actions. The sun is warm through the window. The weave of the seat cover is scratchy against his toes. These and all concepts atomise and drift; the structures of meaning disjoint. He has gone insane, yet he remains conscious and witnessing. He has gone insane, and John will condemn him.

 

**John**

Inches away, John does his best to watch the road, but he feels Sherlock’s proximity like flames lapping his skin.

Sherlock is crying. Or if not quite that then keening, curled up into a ball in his seat. John wants nothing more than to stop the car and hold him, but they are in the city outskirts now. They would attract even more attention than Sherlock’s foetal posture, which has already garnered some curious stares.

OK. Maybe it’s not the best time for an announcement like this, but then again maybe it is. Sherlock just might listen.

‘Sherlock, can you hear me? We’ll talk about this in more detail when we get in, but for now... I’m almost certain that you’re suffering from bipolar disorder. It’s a chronic condition but, and this is the key thing, it’s highly treatable. You were manic in Vegas and now I think you’re having some mixed moods. We’ll get you on lithium and there is a very, very good chance it will help immensely. Understand?’

John shuts up and grips the wheel. He hates how measured and doctorish he sounds, when what he wants to say is _I promise I’m with you. I’ve found you again and I’m never leaving_. But he has to make himself understood on practical matters first.

Sherlock clears his throat.

‘Bipolar disorder?’ His voice is hoarse but even. On some level, he'd probably known it himself. ‘Simple moodswings?’

‘Well, massive moodswings along with confusion, delusions, rage et cetera, ’ replies John. ‘So not simple, no.’

‘Indeed.’ Pause. ‘Bipolar seems a curious label for a condition that evidently consists of profuse multipolar variations.’

Sherlock’s caustic tone – a touch of his normal self – makes John relax just a little. He disciplines himself to keep his eyes on the road.

‘That’s what some of the medical literature says, too. It’s not the best diagnosis ever, but compared to some of the other options... well, it’s a mood disorder not a thought disorder. It doesn’t damage your mind, let’s say, it just influences it rather heavily. Once a particular cycle’s over, you come all the way back down or up. If we can get you on the right drug, that might even stop the cycles.’

More or less. What John hasn’t said is that Sherlock might be in for a paralysing depression even if he starts treatment right now. He also might not be able to take lithium at all, if he has the kind of kidney or liver damage that’s common in former coke addicts. In that case, though, there are other drugs. John will try every one of them.

Sherlock has gone silent. When they get stuck behind a parking car, John looks around quickly, and is deeply glad to see Sherlock unfolding himself. His arms release his knees, and he places his legs back down in the footwell. His posture is still hunched but his eyes are focused as he looks an intense question.

‘Your suggested diagnosis tallies with my observations of my own condition,’ he says. ‘I continue to be conscious in a way I would not think achievable by an entirely fragmented psyche. I am able to overwrite many irrational impulses by act of will, though it requires extreme effort on occasion. So you’re telling me –’ suddenly Sherlock’s voice cracks. ‘John, you said mood _swings_. Not degeneration. Are you telling me my mind isn’t irreversibly damaged?’

Of course that’s what’s been torturing Sherlock the most. John should have known. Should have shared his guess earlier.

‘It is not,’ he says firmly. ‘I’m almost certain... hell yes, I am certain.’ He has to be. ‘Once the pills kick in, the process will reverse itself. We can stop this episode, and either prevent future ones or at least make them milder. I promise.’

There’s quiet in the car. John has to go back to driving, but he watches out of the corner of his eye as Sherlock tips his head back against the seat rest, staring at the roof with the dazed expression of a man reprieved and condemned in the same moment.

‘Thank you,’ he says.

Soon after that they make it to the peace of the house. Sherlock leans against the rough stone wall, and John holds him, until somehow they slip down to sit on the floor with Sherlock in John’s arms. It’s a bit awkward and after a while Sherlock disengages himself, kneels up too and takes John’s face between his hands.

‘Hello,’ says John. He feels relaxed in spite – or maybe on some level because – of all the danger and the horror. Sherlock is looking at him from just inches away. And Sherlock is not dead.

‘My mind is precious to me,’ Sherlock announces, as if noting a fact. ‘So are you.’

John’s heart blooms.

‘I’ll fight anything for you,’ he says. ‘Snipers, illness... bring it on.’

Sherlock nods. John’s not generally a man for tears, but the wetness in his eyes feels natural enough. They are both grieving for old pains and adjusting to new ones, which is how you survive. All you need in life, or all John needs, is someone to love and a battle to fight.

He has those things now. Sherlock loves him. They can fight.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John has figured out what’s wrong in Sherlock’s head. So what are they going to do about it?

**Sherlock**

They have very little to do for the next 24 hours but wait, and pray the local police don’t come knocking.

Sherlock is still in a downswing, but it’s not his worst. He can think, and he can feel how unpleasant it is to be covered with a man’s blood, so when he and John finally draw back from each other as if mutually agreeing on time to regroup, he heads downstairs to shower and burn his t-shirt.

The sky was on fire. Spreading from horizon to horizon: sparkling, wheeling, effervescing energy, like truth breaking through into the world. Impossible. Undeletable.

Yet now, as he steps under the stream of water, he is carrying with him an old, sick weight: depression. He cannot dispel it, nor the humiliation of his earlier behaviour. The designation John has conjured – _bipolar_ – both is and is not a shock. He has his own lay knowledge of the condition. Since childhood he’s been called _lunatic_ and _freak_ , and now at 36 it is confirmed. The only person he would trust to do so has told him. _Highly treatable_ John says. Chronic, yet not degenerative.

He suspects that, in Vegas, the disturbance itself fuelled his elimination of Graf. It also appears that today he crossed some further line, and John’s presence staved off disaster. Sherlock can no longer keep irrationality at bay through pure intellectual override, and that thought is horror, but its edge is dulled to bearable, again by the intervention of John. His calm. His promise to fight. His pragmatic, embracing hands.

It seems that John is even more necessary than previously thought. And John says that Sherlock must take medication. He imagines himself back at Baker Street popping pills each morning. Repugnant. Quotidian, in a dismally literal sense.

And, in Sherlock’s long-buried experience, lethal. Yet, John says, vital for him.

This matter can hardly be left to chance. He will have to tell John the banal little family secret. If John still says lithium after that, lithium it is.

With a course of action before him, Sherlock feels in some measure renewed. Knowledge is after all power, and he and John have 24 hours to consolidate their acquired knowledge. The question is whether, as revelation cools into reality, John might weary of him yet. Because Sherlock is most certainly sick and tired of his own antic self. Could his very intellect be nothing but evolutionary compensation for malfunctioning genes?

He turns the shower on to full. For a few seconds the physical shock of the blast against his skull cancels out the dull pressure inside his head. Blood sluices down the drain, seeming to take with it the taint of illness and death. Sherlock’s will is intact. He is present in his mind. John is with him. They will touch each other again; that is important. They will find a way to go on.

 

**John**

John is booking flights to Croatia. Sherlock has contacts there, who can arrange fake identities for their Russian visas and hopefully also the blood tests required before going on lithium. Lithium, probably with an antidepressant added, is medically the best bet. John just has to hope Sherlock stays on board with the idea once he has another euphoric upswing.

Images crowd John’s head. Sherlock bloodied, sprawled on a pavement; Sherlock’s fake funeral; and now Sherlock mad-eyed, gun in hand, speculating about blasting his brains out. John pushes them away, but the new ones still shock him and the old ones are regaining their impact. He acknowledges them, as he’s learnt to do with so many unwanted memories... and resolves to fight like buggery for better things to come. In _hell_ is Sherlock going to be taken from him again.

With that in mind, they need to talk some more about the bipolar and how it’s likely to develop. John’s best guess is that today’s ranting was a brief reactive psychosis, and not part of Sherlock’s normal mood cycles, but hell... he’s theorising on a total of two days’ data. They have to talk more about this.

John sighs, and moves on to hunting down news feeds to monitor for the possible discovery of Zagami’s body. He’s found three by the time a damp Sherlock, clad only in tracksuit bottoms, comes striding upstairs and into the living area.

‘Hi,’ says John mildly, scanning for mood signals. Sherlock gives him a look that says he knows what John’s doing and disdains it. The disdain isn’t entirely convincing.

Sherlock takes the laptop.

‘I am perfectly well at present,’ Sherlock says. That seems to mean dysphoric but functional. ‘I’d like to research the range of treatments available.’

John nods. ‘I can’t ethically prescribe something unless you know the side effects.’

Sherlock subsides onto the beanbag that usually lives under the TV unit. For the next few minutes he clicks and scrolls, hunched over and peering intently at the screen. John keeps an eye on him and thinks: OK, this is good. Sherlock is being proactive about treatment. Even if that’s a bit peculiar.

Sherlock is scowling at the laptop.

‘So many pharmaceuticals, so little intelligence,’ he says, and John braces himself for a denunciation of anyone who ever had the poor taste to suffer from both a mental illness and a sub-genius IQ. ‘You can’t cure reality and that I suspect is what most patients...’

Sherlock trails off. It takes John a moment to un-brace himself, but when he does Sherlock is staring fixedly at the screen, his mouth slightly open as if he’s been seized by a deduction, but his eyes seem distant. ‘Imipramine can cause mania,’ he murmurs.

John has no idea what’s up, but clearly he has to say something in response. ‘Yes, but why are you googling it in the first place? You want lithium. Imipramine’s still licensed for use as an antidepressant, but if you have bipolar it can be dangerous.’

‘So I understand from this webpage,’ Sherlock responds. ‘I googled imipramine because my mother died by overdosing on it. I was intending to ask your opinion about that, not uncover something quite so...’ Sherlock concludes his sentence with a hand gesture and a shake of the head. His voice is level, but he looks stunned.

Bloody hell. John scrolls through what he knows about Sherlock’s mother, which comes mostly from Rich Brooks’ ‘memories’ as featured in the likes of _The Sun_. Yes he knew she’d died; no he did not know _that_. ‘OK... I’m sorry, but this is part of your family’s medical history, so I have to ask for some detail,’ he says.

Sherlock gives a sharp nod. ‘You’ll have read that she drowned accidentally during a family holiday. A cover-up by my father.’ His scorn is obvious and a strange smile flits across his face; a second after the fact, John realises that the smile was Mycroft’s. ‘The Holmeses are a family with a certain standing, and people of that standing do not, or didn’t in those days, suffer from mental illness. They might experience periodic attacks of nerves, and under cover of that genteel diagnosis a tricyclic antidepressant might be prescribed. Imipramine seemed to make my mother less sluggish, but after a while she got more and more agitated. I think she tried to hide it from us. She took a massive overdose before going for a swim.’ Sherlock pauses and stares ahead. ‘As a child I thought the medication was making things worse but I didn’t know how. We weren’t close, and it’s a long time since I thought about it, at least this way. To find new information is... unexpected.’

Christ. John is scrambling to take all this in. He’s been handed more information than he can possibly process and yet he’s expected to treat it dispassionately as part of a medical picture. He has to, in fact. Sherlock’s health is at stake.

‘OK. The wrong medication can contribute to suicide, yes,’ John says. ‘Bipolar doesn’t just make you happy or sad. It can also land you in a state where everything seems totally shit but you’ve got uncontrollable nervous energy. You feel suicidal and you have the will to act on it.’ John pauses. How easy it is to imagine Sherlock in that condition... no, no, _no_. ‘It’s possible the imipramine tipped your mother into dysphoric mania. That does suggest there might be bipolar in the family, so I appreciate you telling me.’

Sherlock gives a vague smile. It sits oddly on him; it looks like a placeholder, and it probably is. John waits for about half a minute, then says, ‘We’re half-way done with this. I do need your personal history too, though.’ John pauses to let that sink in; they need to have this conversation without being derailed by revelations from the past, even ones of such magnitude. ‘I know you’ve self-medicated with cocaine. Was that just for depression? Of what you might call the garden variety – no hallucinations, feelings of invulnerability or anything?’

Sherlock seems to pull himself out of the past with an effort. ‘All right,’ he says. ‘Yes my moods have bothered me on occasion. I controlled them. No, I haven’t been in the habit of putting on displays like this morning’s, except perhaps in Las Vegas. As you would put it, doctor, this is my first severe episode.’

‘OK. Well, bipolar often starts with depression, then the other side shows up later on. Have you ever been diagnosed with anything else?’

‘Have you forgotten “sociopath”?’ Sherlock shoots back. But he only seems able to sustain his resistance for half a second. ‘No. That wasn’t a formal diagnosis, and I wasn’t prescribed anything. The school authorities apparently regarded misery and protest solely as character flaws, and I suspect Father would have drawn the line at letting them drug me in any case. As for later life – I think you’ll understand my reluctance for contact with mental health services.’

‘Fair enough.’ John’s impulse is to be less impersonal, but he knows sympathy wouldn’t be welcome. ‘The clinical picture you’re presenting... hell, what I mean is, I don’t see anything that suggests you don’t have bipolar. And your current symptoms strongly suggest you do.’

‘Ingenious deduction. So I had better look into the side effects of your suggested miracle cure.’

‘You do that,’ says John, hoping Sherlock really does look up lithium this time; John can’t stand many more shocks, even if Sherlock can. He watches Sherlock collect the laptop with one languid, long-fingered hand, and swing it back up to his lap.

‘Ah, here we are,’ he announces after a few seconds. ‘Lithium regulates neurotransmitters, apparently. Of course what that really means is, nobody has a clue what it does to the brain. But the side effects... yes, a delightful selection: nausea, weight gain – that’ll make Doctor Watson happy, at least – tremors, diarrhoea, increased need to urinate... what fun... contra-indicated in patients with existing liver or kidney damage... I assume you’re planning to get me tested... that is if I want to bother.’

John sighs. ‘You do want to, Sherlock. Remember in the car? Not treating this isn’t an option.’

‘Oh, isn’t it?’ inquires Sherlock. His voice is deadly quiet now, and John is alert again. ‘I draw your attention to the next section: “Cognitive side effects include impaired concentration, memory problems and slowed thinking. Some patients report mental “numbness” or a feeling  
of having their brain wrapped in cotton wool. John, this is an intellectual death sentence!’

Sherlock’s voice is suddenly half a shout. He looks away, then presses the back of his hand against his mouth. His eyes dart back towards John, who is feeling an idiot for not handling this better. The reason he didn’t, of course, is because it scares him too. The idea of Sherlock being... well, _evened out_ by lithium is a strange one at best.

He can’t waste time on his own reactions.

‘Any psychiatric medication will have side effects, and affect thinking to some degree,’ John says. All he has to offer here is the truth. ‘I don’t know of anything that reliably has _fewer_ cognitive side effects than lithium, and most have more. It’s the gold standard for bipolar, and you should try it first. After all, everyone’s different – you might have no problems at all.’

‘Or it might destroy my mind, but who knows, let’s have a crack and see, is that what you’re saying?’ Sherlock’s voice is deadly.

‘No I am not,’ says John, and suddenly he knows where he has to go with this. ‘Look, what do you think is happening to your mind when you hallucinate fire in the sky? Or start going on about how you fancy shooting yourself? We understand virtually nothing about the brain, but repeated mood cycles almost certainly damage it. And the higher you go, the lower you go.’ That isn’t true for everyone but fuck it, it’s near enough. ‘And there’s short-term as well as long-term considerations. If you _don’t_ start lithium, my best guess is these mixed moods are going to get darker and darker until you’re severely depressed for several months. I don’t want to –’ John breaks off, because this is about Sherlock’s needs, not his own squishy feelings.

‘You don’t want to what? You don’t want to have to deal with me?’ Sherlock demands – and the horrible thing about it is that he sounds less accusatory than he does resigned. ‘People generally don’t. And I can assure you that I have no interest in life except as lived on my own terms. If you imagine I am unwilling to risk...’

John has heard enough. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, that’s not it!’ he interrupts, and then he stares until Sherlock meets his eyes, because dammit, his personal feelings do count as data here. ‘The point is that the suicide rate for untreated bipolar is one in five and, when I close my eyes, I’ve started to see you dead on the pavement again. That went away for a while when I got here. Now it’s back.’

John stops. Sherlock is looking so genuinely startled that John doesn’t know whether to laugh, cry or keep him locked in a cupboard until they can get some medication. Instead, John gets down on his knees beside Sherlock’s beanbag, takes up his wrist, which is lolling over the edge, and kisses the pulse point. It’s warm, warm, warm.

‘Try lithium,’ he says. ‘If it’s not right for you, we’ll switch to something else.’

Sherlock extends his fingers. The tips brush over John’s temple and cheek as if testing John’s solidity. John stays very still because his message to Sherlock is _yes, here I damn well am, and I’m not going away_.

‘Normally I would want to research alternatives, but I find myself... at my limits,’ Sherlock says. ‘You are an expert, and you suggest lithium. I’ll try it.’

Thank God. John accepts the acquiescence with a brief nod – anything more would piss Sherlock off or even send him backsliding. He rubs the back of Sherlock’s hand while its owner stares blindly off into the middle distance.

Eventually Sherlock’s eyes slide back towards John, who tries to look encouraging. ‘Do you want some food, then?’ he suggests. ‘And after that you should probably rest.’

Sherlock looks a little hesitant. Then he raises his fingers to play lightly across John’s lips.

‘I would rather have you, at this point,’ Sherlock says.

John smiles. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

Sherlock shows a touch of his old petulance. ‘That is _not_ what I meant.’

John half-way knew that. Instead of being pleased though, he’s irritated.

‘What, then?’ he demands, finding it hard to take stock of his own reactions. When Sherlock sits forwards and puts a hand more blatantly around the back of his neck, John actually twitches away, before he can think better of it. ‘If you want vanilla, fine, but no scene,’ he says, trying to soften the move.

Rather late for that. Sherlock looks mortified. ‘So you see me differently now?’ he says. ‘Doctor Watson does not beat and fuck charity cases?’

Hell no. John wants to reassure him... except he finds he can’t, not quite. He really is eager to back off. Why? And why not play if Sherlock really wants it? He’s hardly a normal patient.

‘You need to rest,’ John tries again, because it’s true – but it’s also feeble. ‘This place is dangerous,’ he manages next – and that’s just ridiculous, because everywhere’s dangerous now. Then words come bubbling out of him almost before he registers them: ‘Sherlock, nothing we do goes right! The first time you seemed to enjoy it, but I was so angry I probably shouldn’t have been playing. Then in the plumber’s you were frankly so high you’d have enjoyed anything, and I’m a complete twat for not figuring out you weren’t well. And yesterday with the _Deep Heat_ I started hurting you and you... withdrew. OK, we discussed some of this stuff by text before I got here, but so much has changed and I truly don’t know what you want or whether I’m doing more harm than good. That’s a big deal anyway, and if you’re ill it gets bigger.’

Sherlock settles into his beanbag while John is talking. He folds his hands in front of him, then immediately unfolds them, and for a moment he looks like a man who’s spent his day facing one shock after another, and is struggling, badly. John wants to hold him, but now everything’s awkward, because John’s gone and opened an extra can of worms, which is so clearly just what they fucking needed.

‘It is theoretically possible that I may become ill during a scene, but that’s no reason for us to be paralysed before we start,’ Sherlock says, and when John shakes his head, he goes on, ‘We’re hardly going to be safe any time in the near future, whatever we do. You know the risks of BDSM and they’re not unique to our situation. As for what I want, the point of the procedure isn’t for the sub to fulfil a laundry list of fantasies.’

John hesitates. He knows that stuff, but if ever he suspected anyone of having their sexual fantasies neatly catalogued but just not being willing to talk about them sensibly, it’s Sherlock

‘If I don’t know –’ he starts, but Sherlock hasn’t finished.

‘Doubtless I do have preferences, and you will have discerned them,’ he says. His cheeks are actually turning a little pink, and his voice wavers, but his stare at John doesn’t. ‘Exploit them. If I’m broken, shape me. Alone is - not always the most efficient. I want pain, I need an anchor, on your terms.’

 _Fuck_. John finds it hard not to look away from Sherlock's steady gaze. What has just been asked of him is piercingly erotic, and also terrifying. He hadn’t really believed that Sherlock might want to submit, as opposed to basically being catered to, and now Sherlock is actually inviting John to play with his mind, raw as it currently is. He’s asking for... well, he’s asking John for love and care, isn’t he. Not even pretending that he just wants to be knocked around for the thrill.

John’s thoughts slip down to the cellar, where the walls are so thick that full-on screams would never be heard. Yesterday’s scene was interrupted, and John has ideas of how to make good. He may not be able to heal bipolar, but...

‘What are you thinking about?’ Sherlock challenges, some familiar steel back in his voice.

John startles slightly, which is absurd – getting lost in his fantasies at a moment like this. For so long he only had fantasy. Now he takes Sherlock’s hand again. Warm, warm, warm.

‘I’m thinking about hurting you,’ he says. A mad, a filthy thing to come out with after today – and it breaks some last inhibition. ‘I’m thinking about making you beg. Understand? I’ll string you up in the cellar Sherlock, and I’ll _feed_ off your pain. We’ll both get drunk on it.’

John stops, and leans forward, and grabs Sherlock’s other wrist. Inches apart, they stare into each other’s faces. Sherlock’s eyes are aglow.

‘Though I'm wondering,’ continues John, calm now because they're fast transitioning to the place where he's in absolute control: ‘How many bloody stupid, feeble people have run away from you because they couldn’t cope, with your brains or your kinks or whatever fantastic weirdness was too much for them this week?’

Sherlock pushes forward with his captured wrist, hard. ‘All of them, eventually,’ he says.

John sways a little on his knees, holds firm, then gets to his feet, dragging Sherlock with him. They stand in the middle of the floor, just staring at each other, Sherlock looming over John, seemingly fiercer, harsher, readier to fight. It isn’t so, though; not this time. John has seen him gradually weakening; John has seen him terrified and suffering; John has seen him reaching out.

‘I will never do that,’ promises John. ‘Get downstairs.’


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Do you want to safeword?’ John asks, making his voice level but loud.  
> ‘No,’ whimpers Sherlock. ‘Not – yet. Oh God.’ He lurches back again, clenching his fists, rolling his head.  
> ‘Then fall,’ says John. ‘I’ll catch you.’

**Sherlock**

Sherlock has become unfamiliar to himself. All his life, he’s known that although his mother gave in to her depression, he can cope with his low moods because he is stronger, cleverer, more disciplined, more logical, more resourceful or even simply male. Now he is a man who hallucinates fire in the sky and rants about suicide to his horrified lover. Disease, a hidden fault in the brain, destroyed his mother and it is trying to destroy him.

Sherlock wants John to flay him and rebuild him, untainted, from the skeleton up. Or if that isn’t possible then at least to contain him. He loves John and he needs this scene. For now, the rest of the world is suspended.

‘Clothes off,’ instructs John as they reach the bottom of the stairs. ‘No, don’t turn and look at me. I look at you.’

Sherlock obeys without question, and when John tells him to kneel and wait while he gets something he does that as well. He wants to go far under, fast. The details of how are incidental. The vital component is John. Sherlock listens, straining to trace his progress around the house.

John returns before long with his backpack, which he puts on the floor by the table. He ignores Sherlock, in favour of taking rope and wrist cuffs out of the bag. He begins to attach one cuff to the iron fragments that protrude from the ancient stonework in the lee of the shower room. Sherlock automatically starts to analyse them: marks on the floor suggest they supported grilles that seem to have divided the cellar, probably into storage areas for food or wine, and... Sherlock stops the flight of his mind. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that there are other such fragments six foot away, also at head height. 

The basic plan is obvious and oh-so filthy good. Sherlock will be strung up by the wrists, front entirely exposed. His stomach lurches at the thought of what is coming: John’s pleasure in Sherlock’s pain that is also Sherlock’s pleasure. Mindfuck.

‘John,’ Sherlock murmurs, without even quite meaning to.

John ignores him, anyway. He finishes a knot, so that both cuffs are attached and ready, then turns around and gives Sherlock a parade-ground look.

‘Get over here,’ he orders. ‘No, don’t stand up – crawl.’

Arousal spills through Sherlock’s bones at the deepened pitch of John’s voice. But when he leans forward and stretches out one arm to obey, something catches inside him. He doesn’t want to go so easily. He wants John to take him down.

Sherlock gets to his feet.

‘Make me,’ he says. _Oh please._

For a second, John looks uncertain. Then he grins.

‘You think I can’t?’ he says, taking a step forwards.

‘On the contrary, I anticipate that you can.’ Sherlock backs away. His heart is pounding, John is advancing on him like a predator, John in a worn blue t-shirt with his muscles swelling out of the sleeves: glorious, glorious. ‘Care to test this hypothesis?’

Sherlock’s bumps into a dining chair. John is onto him, grabbing for his arm, but Sherlock jerks so sharply that John’s hand slips and Sherlock tries to scramble behind him only to be stopped by John’s other arm wrapping around his neck. A hard twist gets him ready to throw John over his leg, but Sherlock is not in this to injure... The moment’s hesitation is enough for John to seize Sherlock’s forearm. The difference in their strength is greater than it was when they fought in Belgravia. One arm still around Sherlock’s neck, John drags Sherlock’s arm up behind him, forcing it up into a painful lock. 

‘You are going to _stay put_ ,’ growls John, pulling him backwards towards the wall with the manacles. Sherlock kicks out behind him but he’s naked and John is in trousers and boots so the blows barely seem to register. He lets out a yell as John snarls with effort and the two sounds mingle, almost harmonising, echoing in the stone room as Sherlock is propelled across the floor and wrenched round to be shoved face first against the wall by one dangling cuff. His arm is yanked upwards and padlocked in, then he’s twisted to face the room and dragged along the wall so his other wrist can be imprisoned. At that he’s trapped, truly, with the blood pounding in his head and the wall rough against his back that’s still tender from belt-whipping. John controls him easily, wrapping on the ankle restraints and locking them together so that each foot can still move, but only a few inches. All Sherlock can do is tug on his arms, rolling his shoulders, feeling how helpless he is, seeing his own excitement mirrored in John’s face.

John’s t-shirt is darkening at the armpits with sweat after their tussle. He yanks it off, and there he is, scarred livid and gorgeous, his sandy hair sticking up in tufts. He lifts a hand up to stroke Sherlock’s cheek. Sherlock bares his teeth and snaps at the fingers. He feels cornered and wild.

‘God, I could keep you like this,’ murmurs John, caressing Sherlock’s chest now. ‘Break your spirit. Make you forget there’s anything in the world except me.’

Sherlock half-lids his eyes and tips back his head. Yes, he wants to belong to John, and _fuck_ – John sinks his teeth into Sherlock’s neck, dragging at the flesh. Pain flares with bright urgency, and Sherlock can only squirm so that his back bangs against the wall. John shifts to a spot on his shoulder, and again the pain blazes up, and Sherlock briefly hesitates over what he’s asked for – until the tide of longing surges in again. He wants everything John can give him. 

‘You remember your safeword?’ John asks, raising his head for a moment. 

Sherlock is slipping, and it’s a nuisance to have to say, ‘Magnesium. Three grunts if I can’t talk.’ Speaking is effort, but silence is as well. At the next bite he lets out a deep moan, and soon after feels John stroking the side of his cock, sending a jolt of bliss through him. John is marking him as his. John is hurting him for pleasure. It’s twisted and blissful and real, and they’re sharing it.

‘Hurts,’ Sherlock pants. His words are tangling up already, and he doesn’t care. ‘Hurts, it – more.’

 

**John**

Previously John beat Sherlock from behind or covered his head with a t-shirt, half in fear of seeing a bored smirk. Now as he stands back he sees the string of bite marks he’s created across Sherlock’s chest and neck, and when he looks into Sherlock’s eyes they’re wide and unfocused, a little like when he babbled about sparkles in the sky. Except they’re fixed on John now, and John has never been looked at with such longing in his life.

He runs his tongue over his lips. Sherlock just demanded more pain, and he’s going to get it, but not all at once. First, John reaches out and wraps his hand around Sherlock’s neck, squeezing just enough to make his breath catch and rattle. Sherlock stares at him, helplessly restrained. It’s an echo of their first scene, with the safety off.

‘Breathing is a privilege,’ says John, and just for a few seconds he presses harder, so that the wheezing breath stops. In the silence, he leans in to lick his way around Sherlock’s trembling lips. ‘Everything you take for granted is a privilege now.’

John eases the pressure of his hand. The rush of what he’s just done hits him and he grins, and he can feel the ferocity of his expression, and when Sherlock recovers enough to nod acceptance the blend of fear and arousal in his face is beautiful. John allows Sherlock a couple more deep breaths, then squeezes again, and the danger of the act, and their shared knowledge of the risks, feels like a conspiracy between them. A third time John presses down, and holds. That’s as far as he wants to go.

John lets Sherlock breathe and spends a few moments stroking his hair to change the pace. He starts a kiss, intending if necessary to be gentle and reassuring, but as soon as John opens his mouth Sherlock’s tongue thrusts into him. While pleasingly eager it’s not exactly submissive, and John could push back, but after a moment’s consideration he decides not to. Instead he lets Sherlock's tongue fuck his mouth while he reaches down to grasp Sherlock’s cock and tug at it, firmly at first and then too hard to be comfortable. Sherlock whimpers and the rhythm of the kiss falters but John cuffs him lightly on the side of the head and he seems to get the message, resuming the thrust and sweep of his tongue. John closes his eyes and enjoys the kiss, the cock offering itself for abuse, the subtle sounds of discomfort and obedience from the body bound to the wall.

Eventually John detaches himself.

‘You like that?’ he says, going to check the circulation in Sherlock’s hands. ‘Servicing me while I’m rough with you? Me too.’ John plants a kiss on one of the elegant fingertips, then dodges the hand as it tries to stroke his face. Sherlock wants to touch him, and he wants to touch Sherlock, but there is a certain way John intends this to go. ‘Unfortunately for you, now I’m going to _really_ hurt you. I want to see how you cope.’

As he speaks, John watches for signs that Sherlock might not truly be up for this, but Sherlock just bites his lip and makes an effort to stand up straight in the bondage. John caresses his sweaty hair, then goes over to the backpack and pulls out a clear plastic bag containing dozens of silver clips and clamps, ranging from the gentle butterfly type to a few of a vicious-toothed alligator design. He tips them out on the table and sets two of the fiercest elaborately to one side, watched intently by Sherlock. If he’s trying to deduce something, good luck to him, because it’s already clear those two are going to end up somewhere sensitive, and Sherlock won’t tell exactly where just by staring at John.

‘Ah. Stationery not sex toys,’ says Sherlock hoarsely. ‘Easier at customs.’

John grins. ‘That’s right, but are you still trying to think? Do you reckon that right now I want you to think?’

Sherlock tilts his head, eyes unfocused. He looks as if he’s trying to oblige, but the idea of not thinking is so alien that he’s stuck. 

John laughs to himself as he picks up half a dozen mild butterfly clips. Taking his time about it, he applies them to the underside of Sherlock’s upper arms, with Sherlock craning around to watch. _Doesn’t hurt_ , says his expression, which he accompanies with a slight sniff.

John ignores that, just furrowing his brow in a way that should explain to any observer that _I’m building up slowly, trust me_. He uses more of the same clamps to create shining lines down Sherlock’s sides to his hips, then scoops up a handful of sturdier wingback clips and crouches down with them. Sherlock’s cock bobs in his face but John just gives it a brief kiss before rolling the skin of Sherlock’s left inner thigh between his fingers and snapping on a clamp. 

This time he does get a hiss out of Sherlock. John smirks, indulges himself with a lick of Sherlock’s right bollock that causes a full-body shudder, then alternates kisses and gentle nips with his teeth between applying seven more clamps to Sherlock’s inner thighs. As the last one goes on, Sherlock tries to twitch away, but there’s nowhere to go to. 

‘Painful, yes, that is the point,’ says John. He stands up, grips Sherlock by the back of the neck and, ignoring the look he’s getting – a dazed variant of _I knew that, idiot_ – smartly snaps a clip onto his left earlobe. Sherlock starts to shudder but John holds his head in place long enough to inflict a second clamp on the other ear.

Sherlock convulses. His arms try to spasm inwards, making the cuffs and the ironwork creak. He lets out a brief high-pitched wail that cuts off abruptly as he grits his teeth, twisting his head out of John’s grasp to give him a stunned look. His body jerks, but now John is pinning him against the wall, which is redundant but feels amazing as he absorbs every detail of Sherlock’s struggle through his own skin.

‘These hurt, and they’re going to keep hurting,’ John says. As soon as Sherlock stills, mastering the pain, John fastens the last four clamps from his handful onto the loose skin of his neck. ‘I can’t take them off all at once, and they’ll hurt more when they do come off, so you’re stuck. Tell me you understand.’

Sherlock nods, breathing deeply but almost regularly. ‘I understand,’ he says, voice rough but steady. So he’s with it enough to realise that John is checking consent to ramp this up: good. 

‘All right,’ says John. He reaches down to Sherlock’s slightly drooping cock and gives it a couple of reassuring strokes. Then he leans in closer, and murmurs: ‘Shut the fuck up now. Screaming is fine, but one actual word out of you and I’ll put one alligator clip on your tongue and seal your lips with the other. I’ll watch you tear your mouth up trying to make the pain stop.’

Fuck, the thrill of saying that. Sherlock goes rigid, and John keeps enough sense about him to watch his reaction with care, because John would not do what he promises... but it seems they’re both perverted enough to get off on pretending he would, because Sherlock tips his head back and whimpers with desire. John bites into his throat, then twists the clamp that dangles from one of his earlobes before jerking it off and two seconds later snapping it back on so that Sherlock bucks frantically, moaning in distress until John catches his head and kisses his mouth, at the same time rutting against him until he steadies and begins to thrust back. John could live for this, the electric moment when Sherlock is struggling with the pain and they ride it together, John in charge, Sherlock under his control. They rock together for a few moments more before John slows the pace.

He brings down a hand to gentle Sherlock with a few strokes to his chest and hips, then returns to the table to collect more butterfly clamps. These he places, with approximate symmetry, on the skin of Sherlock’s torso, avoiding only his cock, balls and nipples. Sherlock watches him intently, letting out small pained noises, his gaze skidding occasionally to the two alligator clips set aside on the table.

Eventually John hooks one of those clips to the waistband of his trousers and holds up the other. He squeezes it open between his fingers and brings it close to Sherlock’s face. Sherlock’s eyes follow its progress.

‘Just endure,’ John says, holding it up to Sherlock’s face. ‘I want to see how much this hurts you.’

Sherlock nods. He looks far under, and John would like to simply pause for a while and enjoy the waves of fear, trust and desire rippling across his face. But John knows he can’t leave flesh in clamps for too long, so he contents himself with half a minute of moving his fingers in a leisurely circle around Sherlock’s right nipple, gently digging the tip of the clip into his skin. Then with his other hand John tugs the little nub into a peak... and snaps the alligator teeth home around it.

Sherlock screams. Not full-throatedly, but it’s ragged and agonised and drawn-out, tailing off into a half-choking breath. His head rolls and lurches forwards and he grunts, shaking his whole body in the bondage. John kisses him on the cheek, lightly, alert for the safeword, holding his hands ready to caress or restrain in case Sherlock thrashes violently enough to damage himself.

‘ _Fuck_ ,’ Sherlock whispers, his eyes haunted, fixed on the air in front of him. ‘I –’. Then he seems to remember he’s not allowed to speak and visibly fights his reactions down, standing up straight although he’s trembling, and actually sticking his chest out slightly as if to say he’s ready for the other clamp. John bites his lip at the sight, his feelings rising, because never did he think he’d see Sherlock like this. Until so recently he thought he’d never see Sherlock again at all, and now he has, and yes that’s bloody obvious, but the thing that’s occurring to him for the first time, right now, is that he no longer has to carry that thought, _I will never see Sherlock again_ , inside him. Until now some part of him believed his luck was provisional. Now John can let that go. Sherlock is home. And John wants to mingle their bodies and minds.

John shucks off his remaining clothes, then begins to stroke himself with his right hand. The other still holds the second alligator clip, and Sherlock’s spacey stare wanders from one to the other, while his hands twitch intermittently. After a minute or so, John drags the clamp slowly up Sherlock’s belly to his chest, and holds it open around the little pink nipple for a few seconds. He lets go of his own cock to grip Sherlock’s shoulder reassuringly, then lets the clamp bite in.

The scream this time is choked and desperate. Sherlock writhes so hard he escapes John’s hold, jerking his head as he fights to cope. His whole body stiffens, and he stares at John as if in utter astonishment... and then his eyes soften first, followed by his whole posture, and he starts to laugh, unevenly and drunkenly. He tilts his head towards John, and gives him a sloppy kiss when their lips meet.

‘Endorphins,’ says John, smiling, rubbing their noses together. Sherlock smiles back, and it’s open and happy, and John steps back and stretches out an arm to entwine their fingers. Sherlock grasps his hand eagerly, resting limp in the bondage now, his expression mixing pain and contentment. John goes back to stroking his own cock with his free hand, occasionally reaching out to flick the metal jaws that crush Sherlock’s nipples into whitened, distorted strips. ‘All right, you can speak again, if you want.’

Sherlock blinks, as if wrongfooted. ‘John,’ he says, and the syllable comes out strangely blurred. ‘Hurts. Good – John.’

That seems to be it for words. Sherlock lets out a kind of hum, and moves his head in a slow circle. The sight kindles warmth in John’s chest. Whatever crap they’ve been through, now they’ve made this moment and he intends to remember it. He’s thinking about that when he says, without really intending to: ‘Keep your eyes fixed on me.’

Sherlock pauses in his swaying movement. John panics for a second, because he didn’t mean to invoke _that_ association – or he didn’t think he did. 

Sherlock is surfacing a little now, a flicker of intellect and caution returning to his eyes. John scrabbles for some formula to restabilise the scene, but then he stops himself: _why_ back off? They can’t undo the pain. But they can own it.

‘You OK?’ says John, very gently.

Sherlock nods, only once, but firmly enough that John is in no doubt about consent. He goes over to his backpack and gets the Deep Heat out.

‘Will you do this for me?’ he says. The words Sherlock used to make John watch him die. Invoking them now is warped and heady and he feels both that he’s shouldering a heavy weight and in some way freeing himself. The horror that’s underpinned his every moment for the last few months… well, here it is. They are standing half in this room and half in the darkest point of their lives together. 

‘We’ll just have to do it like this,’ says Sherlock, hoarsely. There is direct need in his eyes but also a haunted loneliness, and John has the urge to simply stop and comfort him… but what they are doing, what’s important here, is facing down grief, not pushing it away. He takes a deliberate moment to clear his head before crouching down to squeeze out a large dab of ointment and massage it into Sherlock’s cock. 

Sherlock peers down at him intently, letting out little gasps as John’s thumbs caress the cool cream into his flesh. They’re gasps of pleasure, but that will change very quickly. John looks up as his stomach tightens in anticipation, and Sherlock smiles at him in a wobbly sort of way, and John’s emotion is a flame cleansing his insides because he’s seen Sherlock insane, falling, dead...

John only has seconds before the agony kicks in. He quickly squeezes out more cream and uses it to cover Sherlock’s balls. Then he stands up, fists his sticky hand in Sherlock’s hair and kisses him fast and rough. He runs a hand caressingly down Sherlock’s body from neck to waist before pulling away.

For one more heartbeat, Sherlock simply watches John submissively. Then his focus wavers, and seems to shift to some internal point.

‘John... it burns,’ he says. ‘I...’

Then Sherlock throws himself forward in the bondage so hard that the ironwork creaks. He lets out an agonised groan, fingers clawing downwards as if they could possibly reach his cock.

‘Do you want to safeword?’ John asks, making his voice level but loud. If need be he could get a damp cloth over here in seconds.

‘No,’ whimpers Sherlock. ‘Not – yet. Oh God.’ He lurches back again, clenching his fists, rolling his head. 

‘Then fall,’ says John. ‘I’ll catch you.’

Sherlock is weeping. A single tear tracks its way down his face, glistening and lonely. John’s heart seems to clench at the sight, and all at once a wave of grief smashes through him, violent and random and filthy with emotional debris. Sherlock fell and died. Sherlock left him forever. Sherlock is in front of him, now, and they are in pain. John cradles Sherlock’s cheek in his hand and licks up the tiny drop. Sherlock whimpers, nuzzling into John’s lips... and then he starts to beg.

‘Please, John... touch. My cock. I can’t take it. Please. Hold my cock again, it... it changes the feeling, touch my cock, please, _please_.’ 

'No,' says John, implacable. The desperate uneven pleading is almost more than he can stand, but this ordeal is carrying them where they need to go. Only he can’t leave his lover entirely untouched, so John strokes Sherlock's face as the tears flow more freely, bitter and vital. They've been parted and broken and everything has changed, but now they are here. He leans in close to Sherlock’s ear and whispers: ‘You total fucking madman, did you think you could get so lost I wouldn’t find you in the end?’

Sherlock shakes his head, whimpering. His hands flex, more weakly now. ‘No. God, John, I _love_ you. Fuck, I do. It hurts...’

 _I love you_. John kisses Sherlock fiercely for that, one more time. Then he has to attend to practical concerns. Sherlock is shaking all over now, and John may have pushed him to the place where he won’t safeword even though he’s past his limits.

John slips down onto his knees and wraps his hands around Sherlock’s cock and balls. Sherlock shudders, then pushes upwards into John's fist with a gasp. They move together, Sherlock thrusting and John tugging, for half a minute longer until Sherlock's erection is pulsing in John's grip.

At the point of orgasm, John pinches off the alligator clips - and Sherlock comes. With one final agonised ecstatic shriek he sprays John's chest then jerks and quivers to stillness.

But John is not done yet. He releases Sherlock's cock and looks up at him, now slumped in the bondage with his eyes closed and head lolling to reveal his bitten neck. His abused body swings helplessly from its manacled wrists, and John's own desire overflows. He ruts his cock between his hand and Sherlock's thigh, images of their scene superimposing themselves on the blur of rough stone and reddened skin in front of his eyes.

Sherlock is wrecked. John wrecked him. John feels Sherlock weakly kissing his hair as his ears begin to ring. He slips his arm around Sherlock's ribs.

John comes, in wave after wave, wrapped around Sherlock, and he does not let go. Ever. 

They're home now.


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In two words: _Now_ what?

**Sherlock**

Sherlock has minutes of peace. John lowers him onto a beanbag fetched from upstairs, and washes off the Deep Heat. Between them they remove the remaining clamps, and after that John just keeps holding him. He drifts. Here they are, and Sherlock wants to stay. 

John said ‘I’ll catch you,’ and he did.

But something inside Sherlock – and these days he knows damnably well what – won’t let him rest for long. After fifteen minutes he knows he’s getting high again, in an antsy way that does not promise to be enjoyable. He gently shakes John’s arm from his shoulders.

‘We have to shower,’ he says. And he knows from the look he gets that John is aware of the other reason for moving, but so be it. Right now it feels like they couldn’t be awkward with each other if they tried.

They kiss in the shower. John rubs his hands over Sherlock’s new marks, and Sherlock feels contained, and the rage is in his head but it’s slightly up and to the right of his true mind, just for now. He wraps himself in a towel and for once it’s John, worried about possible discovery, who goes off to check the news feeds on his laptop while Sherlock rests for a moment on a dining chair. He’s feeling more physically bashed up than he let on.

He will control what is happening to him. The scene cleared his mind. This high is different already; he’s not losing himself. He will not, _for God’s sake_ , start laughing or raging at nothing. His thoughts are intact... but they come with effort, the anger banging them together.

Is this improvement, or some new phase?

Upstairs, a phone rings.

Sherlock startles to his feet immediately. It’s the phone he keeps for communicating with his informants, and they are only supposed to text. Sherlock swears.

The chair falls over. He got up too fast. He needs to go upstairs but instead he grabs the _fucking_ chair and slams it into the edge of the table. By the time he’s at the top of the stairs the ringing has stopped. 

And something else catches his attention. John is staring fixedly at the laptop, which is apparently playing a news item: ‘– found in an abandoned barn in the south of the island. Initial reports suggest one of the bodies is that of Philip Zagami, a small-time mafia thug who had gone straight and returned to Malta to join his wife and their newborn daughter...’

‘Shit,’ John snarls, glaring from the laptop to Sherlock and back again. His face is drawn, utterly changed from minutes earlier. ‘Tell me that call you just got wasn’t the police. _Newborn daughter?_ ’ He prods at his cursor pad. ‘Sherlock, this other website says some Russian outfit is claiming responsibility for the killing!’

‘It’s not the police,’ says Sherlock. ‘Nobody has this number except for my people. And the police would have broken the door down. They must be starving for drama around here.’

The call was from a withheld number. He forces himself to analyse the possibilities surrounding that, not think about the change in John. Of course he’s bloody changed at a moment like this, would Sherlock want him not to? Idiocy. _Think._

The voicemail symbol lights up on the phone. He punches the button.

‘Sherlock Holmes, my name is Oleg Kolyvanov. I see you remove my competitors. I decided you can be useful for me, so I explained the death of Philip Zagami my way. Now, I invite you to visit me in St Petersburg. Come, or I will kill Gregory Lestrade and Martha Hudson. If you bring anyone else in it, they will also die. I do not play games, Mr Holmes, and if you play with me, this will happen. I look forward to meet you and Captain Watson.’

Click.


	9. Some Notes on Bipolar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know some people have liked this fic because of the realistic approach to bipolar, so I’m adding these notes as an appendix. No need to bother with them if you're just reading for the story. 
> 
> It should go without saying, but if you think you or someone you care about is suffering from bipolar or another mental illness, seek medical help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can answer questions in the comments, if anyone has any, subject to the disclaimer that I am not a medical professional of any kind. I’m writing on the basis of personal experience and research only.

**What is Bipolar?**  
In current medical thinking, the bipolar diagnosis (formerly known as manic depression) is split between Type I and Type II. Type I involves severe mania, with symptoms such as delusions of being a prophet or other blatant disconnection from reality, while Type II peaks at a lower, non-delusional and therefore less destructive level of mania (‘hypomania’) while causing more extensive and sometimes even more severe depression than Type I. Both varieties can be life-destroying in their own way, and (as with many diagnostic categories) in reality the distinction between the two is muddy. Everyone with bipolar cycles between depression, (hypo)mania and euthymia (normal mood), but the length and intensity of episodes varies hugely.  
Bipolar seldom makes people violent, let alone murderous – and even if it does, they are much more likely to be a danger to themselves than to others. I was reluctant to write Sherlock killing a man while manic in Vegas High, for this reason. However, I hope it’s clear that he doesn’t kill because of the mania. Mania just made it bearable for him to do a deed he was planning anyway.

 **Bipolar Sherlock?**  
On the basis of BBC canon up to the end of season 2, I don’t think Sherlock necessarily is bipolar, but it doesn’t take much to develop the character in that direction. Most sufferers are only recognizably ill during acute episodes of (hypo)mania or depression, but they can have what are called sub-syndromal symptoms at other times.  
My conception of Sherlock in Four Corners has him sitting roughly at the Type II end of the scale but cycling up towards true mania in the scene in the barn because of the exceptional amount of pressure he’s under and his own denial about dealing with it. Life stress can make episodes worse.  
This Sherlock has experienced milder bipolar cycles in the past but either self-medicated with cocaine or just soldiered on by attempting to use logic and reasoning to keep his behavior within bounds (as he tries to do in my fic). His intelligence probably led to some of his symptoms passing as eccentricities.

 **The Bipolar Experience**  
Clinical depression is more than just sadness, and likewise (hypo)mania is more complex than feeling happy. It can make you reckless, arrogant, irritable or anxious, as well as high, productive and sociable, and full mania can cause sufferers to stop sleeping entirely, hear voices and believe themselves to be invincible.  
Generally episodes of mania and depression go on for weeks or months at a time.  
On the other hand, the two states are not always distinct. Mixed episodes (having manic and depressive symptoms simultaneously) and periods of ultra-rapid cycling (changing mood several times a day) are also a feature of the bipolar cycle for a lot of people, and are their own special brand of nasty. Broadly for Sherlock, Vegas High = mania, Malta Bright = mixed/rapid cycling, Piter Raw = depression. 

**Diagnosis**  
For an illness that’s part of popular jargon and has seemingly obvious symptoms, bipolar is surprisingly hard to diagnose. On average it takes 10-15 years of misdiagnosis before it’s correctly treated. In part this is because Bipolar II people tend to get labeled as ‘plain’ depressive, while Bipolar I can be mistaken for schizophrenia.  
Just why this is a serious problem becomes clear when you look at a) the suffering bipolar brings and b) the fact that about 20% of people with untreated bipolar commit suicide.  
A few people have queried why John doesn’t diagnose Sherlock more quickly in Malta Bright (it takes him a day and a half from arrival in Malta to the point where he’s on the sofa googling, with Sherlock zoning out beside him). In fact, I wrote John’s reactions as a bit of fantasy wish fulfilment on the speed, insight and compassion front. Things which may seem obvious if you inhabit a particular brain or are given access to it by a story are not always regarded as obvious by professionals. My experience is that the human cost of this can be very high, but they put thoroughness and certainty above speed of diagnosis.

 **Medication**  
In the UK, the standard medication for bipolar disorder is lithium. However, it’s hard on the liver and kidneys so if you have problems with those organs you probably can’t take it. Lithium also causes various side effects from weight gain and dry mouth up to more unusual but severe problems. For people who can’t take it or don’t do well on it, there are a number of second-resort drugs including lamotrigine, carbamazepine and others.  
One of the biggest problems with medicating manic depression is that anyone who has experienced euphoric hypomania tends to pine for it and resist taking pills that will stop it coming back. Bipolar is an illness with some very desirable features… which need to be set against the 1 in 5 death rate for untreated sufferers. Whether and how much to medicate is a key question, particularly as people are also reluctant to take pills for fear of blunting their creativity/mental acuity. 

**Mad Genius?**  
There is a persistent popular association between bipolar and creativity/intellect. Sherlock certainly fits the bill.  
My personal take on this is that bipolar doesn’t make you intelligent, but if you happen to be intelligent you are more likely to a) survive and b) fight off the illness enough to have a life, because an active intellect can go some way towards screening the barrage of unhelpful beliefs and impulses that the disease throws up.  
Bipolar turmoil provides an enormous pile of psychological raw material. It doesn’t make you creative, but if you are anyway, it can give you fuel.

 **What’s Behind Four Corners?**  
Sherlock’s history and experience of illness is mostly based on mine, except I’ve never tipped over into fully delusional mania as he briefly does while under acute stress. I’m like Sherlock to the extent that I try to make sense of things by putting them into narrative order – deductions in his case, fic in mine. Also, I personally recommend to Sherlock that he take the pills.

**Where to find more Information**  
[Bipolar UK](http://www.bipolaruk.org.uk)  
[NAMI (US)](http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Mental_Illnesses/Bipolar1/Home_-_What_is_Bipolar_Disorder_.htm)


	10. Malta Bright fanart!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Extremely gorgeous and entirely NSFW fanart by [detectivelyd](http://detectivelyd.tumblr.com) at the link below!

[Fanart of the cellar scene by detectivelyd](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/detectivelyd/39672044/46374/46374_original.jpg)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Malta Bright [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6025483) by [songlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/songlin/pseuds/songlin)




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